


Weep and Be Burned

by chiliadicorum



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angband, Canon Compliant, Character Study, First Age, Gen, Melkor-centric, PLEASE heed the warning inside, Thangorodrim, this is not a maedhros-rescued-from-angband story, very much the opposite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 03:12:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 60,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15015398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiliadicorum/pseuds/chiliadicorum
Summary: Morgoth stands upon the walls of Angband, contemplating Maedhros as the eldest son of Fëanor is bound up in chains deep beneath his feet, pondering just what he should do with his copper-haired creature next. (Inspired by a study of "Myths Transformed", Morgoth's Ring)Ch. 8: Let him hang from Thangorodrim!





	1. Moringotto

**Author's Note:**

> This is virtually a bold and somewhat daring attempt to dive into the mind of Morgoth and a few of his thoughts behind the captivity of Maedhros. This may be difficult to read because the language is very...rich, even dramatic. Note that it was deliberately written that way. Yes, it was a rewarding experience writing like this, but I will probably never write a story of this "kind" again. Too hard. And yes, Fëanor is dead in this fic. I don't intend to use his name as clickbait, but he as a character has such an imperative part that not tagging his name felt stupid. Just as this story revolves around Melkor, a significant portion of his thoughts revolve around Fëanor.
> 
> **Warning**: This story, short as it is, will progressively grow dark with little to no levity, and some descriptions and/or images may prove disturbing to some readers. This initial chapter is "clean" some might say, but in future chapters, please read with caution.
> 
> Index on Names: at this early point in time, it is irrational to attest that the Quenya form of Elven names were already provided their Sindarin rendition. At the time of Maedhros' captivity, the Sindar had yet to socially interact with the Exilic Noldor to the point of Sindarin adaptation.
> 
> Nelyafinwë/Maitimo = Maedhros, the ataressë/amilessë  
> Fëanáro = Fëanor  
> Ñolofinwë = Fingolfin  
> Findekáno = Fingon  
> Cosmoco = Gothmog, the demon's masc. name, finalized and derivative form to be found in HoME I & II  
> Mairon = Sauron

"O wretched man that I am!" ~ Romans 7:24

**Chapter 1**

Elves. Such insects. As ants they scurry when their home be prodded with the butt of a twig. As beetles they flee come the light of Darkness. As butterflies, so beautiful and delicately wrought, they be smote with but one rent of their wings.

Melkor stood on the thousand-foot precipice above his Great Gate of Angamando, the dark fortress cloaked in shadow and poisonous fumes. No smidgen of light could pierce the vapors he summoned from the depths of the stronghold, vapors that belched in black clouds from the countless smithies through the chimney. And no foul winds from the West could conquer the three smoking peaks of Thangorodrim, towering into the sky just in the distance. Here it was impenetrable, for not even the surrounding black lands Melkor now looked upon could regain any semblance of Life.

Elves, he again mocked with a disdainful chuckle deep within his mind. His smoldering eyes glittered as he cast out his gaze unto his wide demesne of Arda. Elves, such delightful baubles! How foolish they proved to be when they gathered what little courage they had to prove what little might they possessed. That ill-conceived water-lover of a Vala had warned the Lindar and people of Ingwë of his misgivings against him, and those Foam-riding and Air-minded creatures had heeded the Water-king's words. But the Noldor….Ai, how credulous they proved to be! An acerbic grin touched his face. Though he had anticipated as much as he liked (namely, not at all) that his Sword-elves had followed him beyond the Sea, from it his untainted hate knew no bounds. Melkor thought his accursed Brethren would have forbidden such a crossing, wise of the danger to be swiftly wrought otherwise at his hands. But then, the Valar had countless times proven foolish in their deeds.

But come they had, crossing the Cold Road that he once had been forced to march across when bound up in the accursed Angainor. Melkor could still feel the chains burning as a cold brand into his body. But he was little ignorant in the goings of his demesne and had learned swiftly, oh so swiftly, of the Noldor's humiliation and the deeds they committed at that Haven of incompetent boat lovers. But not only had all but a tithe come, either by way of Sea or Ice, for the Exilic Noldor had not been idle, much to his amusement. He had long known the Elves to be arrogant in his dealings with them, oh yes, but he had underestimated that arrogance, or mayhap downright prideful folly? For whom with half an intelligent mind would believe himself capable of overthrowing him, King of Arda? He, mightiest of the Valar!

Apparently, Fëanáro. And then Ñolofinwë had come with the rising of the white orb, surprising Melkor and his minions with the blast of silver trumpets. But while his servants had simply stood there, ogling with amazement and dread at this newfound source of Light, Melkor had been more keen and recognized Tilion of Oromë at the helm of the satellite. Melkor recalled with a sense of foreboding how confounded he had been when first laying sight on this unanticipated hand of the Valar. And swiftly had he hated the new creation with a burning passion that would have sent fleeing any sane being. What was worse was that this newfound orb of white spat with the image of Telperion! But mayhap, Melkor mused, now that the dismal wonder had dissipated, he could thwart this new creation as all the other plans of the Valar he had thwarted. Tilion was no threat and Melkor fantasized at the Maia's reaction (and the Valar's) should he be assailed with a host of demons. Or shadows. Or flame. Anything of Darkness would work, really. It always proved entertaining to watch the Valar panic over the small things he did.

But such planning was for another time. He knew not what this new sheen of light indicated, if only if it was in coordination with Ñolofinwë's arrival, or if it meant more beyond the Valar deftly trying their hand in retaliation again. But he would deal with the newly come Noldor later. Oh yes, he would soon make them regret ever venturing across the Ice as they learned the true meaning of wrath.

But Fëanáro….At the recollection of his bitterest foe, his mien darkened to be as dark as the vapors blotting out the sunlight. And thunder shook the foundations of Angamando beneath his feet. Melkor shook his head in both disgust and disappointment. My my, how many regrets he had with that endearing Elf. If only he could have been present, to have placed an ear upon the moment when that insolent princeling had learned his precious father had died. A bitter smile lit Melkor's face, for though he had delighted in playing with an Unbegotten once more, he had to admit that smiting Finwë would have been all the more entertaining if only his firstborn had been there to witness what he had done to him. He could see it even now before his eyes, and he relished at his musings: Finwë in his hands with that delicious terror in his eyes all Quendi had been wont to reveal; Melkor going out once more to do as he pleased (oh, how he had longed to!) with brittle hröa and fëa; and all the while Fëanáro bound up in his traitorous Ungweliantë's web, forced to watch his beloved father's demise as he crushed the Noldo's head with his great mace of iron. Melkor's smile diminished as his aura darkened.  _Yes_ , he hissed. Even though, upon impulse, Fëanáro would have been the first to go, tormenting the princeling by witnessing such would have been some small reprisal for slamming the door in his face.

And now in death Fëanáro was beyond his reach! Oh, none could mistake the joy and pleasure Melkor glowed with at the reality that Fëanáro, mightiest to have been and to be, was dead. But he had wished for the pleasure of killing that insolent excuse for a Firstborn himself! But no, Fëanáro's Fire had been smote by a greater flame ere he could reach him, and Melkor had made sure Cosmoco knew fully of his wrath for performing the deed that had rightfully belonged to him!

 _Jail-crow_  Fëanáro had called him. A jail-crow, just before Fëanáro had slammed the door in his face. He had not even given Melkor the chance to talk with him as he did the other Noldor! Melkor still knew not where he had failed in his endeavor to douse him with sweet words and was ever bitter for it, for he had needed the Spirit of Fire like no other for his plans to fully come to fruition. But such never came, and when finally Melkor had the chance to break and make suffer that Incarnate in any way he pleased, that pleasure was taken from him! Lord of Valaraukar and king of flame though he be, Cosmoco still trembled in the presence of his Master. Good riddance.

But though he had wished for Fëanáro as a captive, Nelyafinwë proved to be somewhat of a fine substitute, he had to confess, his ire with Fëanáro fading as he considered his firstborn son. And really, he was somewhat impressed with how long it had taken to break down the whelp.

As his thoughts turned to the red-haired creature deep beneath his feet in one of the pits of Angamando, Melkor leaned his elbows on the parapet of glassy igneous rock, wondering what end was to be for Fëanáro's firstborn. He had a strong spirit, true, and such was something Melkor had initially underestimated. But what else should he have expected from the very get of the Spirit of Fire?

But not fiery enough, he amended in dark amusement as he heard laughter from the stronghold's depths. Even now Melkor could hear the delightful shrill of Nelyafinwë's screams as his Orcs enjoyed him. In all honesty, he had to confess to being surprised Nelyafinwë had still any voice left in him to cry, for even his lieutenant, most cunning of all his People, had been erstwhile convinced that Fëanáro's Copperhead had lost any strength (or mayhap will) to utter pleas and protestations. But now, atop the slags of Angamando, from amid the deepest pits of the stronghold Melkor could hear him screaming again with that delicious despairing agony in his voice. Impressive.

Nelyafinwë, Maitimo, the Elf of beautiful bodily form….What Melkor would give to see if any would be capable of even uttering that amilessë after laying sight on him now. Mayhap Nerdanel had named him for the beauty of his body in reference to outwardly as much as inwardly, for Maitimo generated blood at an admirable speed. But even if he could survive his time here in this abode of mountains, this Elf of exceptional beauty would forever bear the scars of his torment and be a beauty no longer. Melkor let go a small grin at the thought. It was the least the Elf deserved for existing.

Verily, he had never taken much notice of Nelyafinwë amid his dwelling in the West, for all his focus had been bent on destroying that hapless Fëanáro. All he remembered most of all was the image of Maitimo in the constant company of that one Elf, the one who walked by his side with dark hair braided as ever with cords of gold. Melkor knew Findekáno as intimately as he knew all of the House of Finwë, but then Melkor took little notice of things not pertaining to his plans. Especially with all his efforts dedicated towards all the feigning to be done that naught was wrong and all was well.

And such effort had been  _draining_. To all Elves he himself was fairer than even Manwë, Melkor knew. The Elves had given him ear as they never had for his usurper of a brother! But still, something had stayed his advancement in Valinor. And for that detestable reason he had dared to never risk his act of self-abasement and repentance being discovered, though such had been a temptation considering how gullible and naïve his little brother was.

The countenance of Melkor was terrible to behold as it darkened beyond forbearance as his thoughts turned to Manwë. And Melkor could have screamed in all hatred and ire unmatched.

Aye, naught had been wrong and all was well. Naught wrong and all well! And it had been an insanity maintaining the deception all the while working to stay the torment that had come upon Melkor in droves from merely  _being_  in the abode of the Valar!

His Being suddenly quailed in remembrance and several quakes rent rock and earth throughout the Iron Mountains. But Melkor paid no heed to the devastation he wrought, took no comfort from it, for he now trembled as seldom before, though whether more in hate or terror he could not tell.

Curse him, Manwë's Song was everywhere! A deep longing for the Void smote Melkor then, a longing for its vastness, vastness empty of all his brethren's pretentions of Song and might. Why did Manwë do what he did? Why must his Voice and essence echo in  _everything_? And in his Song, an echo of the Greater One? One that still reduced and shriveled him until he wept. There was no escaping it, save in the Void. And every shrill of Manwë's Song he heard Melkor grew in hatred beyond Manwë's greatest conception. Why must he Sing? Why had his little brother ever been Brought into Being? Manwë's Song was unending! But not here – nay, here Melkor's own Song echoed with all the might he had long possessed. How the Elves so often cringed upon hearing it, how they constantly trembled as they did for no other Vala.

For Manwë was weak, utterly blinded by a complete lack of intelligence in how to perceive the purpose of Eä's Creation. Blinded! Manwë feared him and feared him greatly, this Melkor knew well. Manwë was beloved, nay, worshipped by the Eldar and yet his pest of a brother failed to even acknowledge his own faults undeserving of such adulation? What a fool he was! Melkor had seen swiftly before his Imprisonment how Manwë had become engrossed in amendment, in healing, in re-ordering. All in effort to control him, Melkor, mightiest of all Beings to be and to come. Ever had Manwë proved incapable of comprehending the benefit of creative power, the beauty of chaos and pure freedom of evil. Melkor had made certain to make Manwë regret that incomprehension, though, proving the  _King's_  weakness again and again in their wars and battles.

 _Damn Manwë!_  he shrieked on all levels of the cosmos. Thunder rumbled above and fire spewed forth from the rents in the mountainsides, and the air was as hot as his ire. And Melkor felt the hordes of Orcs beneath his feet tremble and cower in face of his wrath. There Manwë sat upon his throne, believing himself to be lord of the highest royalty in Eä. There he sat upon his throne with pretensions of kingship! There he sat upon his throne with the conceited belief to being the greatest of them all!

But no, for Melkor was greater and in all ways conceivable. The Valar cowered behind their hills and Voices! Fourteen of them trembling as he struck, startling as he jumped! Manwë's day of reckoning was coming, and ever was Melkor comforted by this knowledge. His little brother's day was coming and on that day forevermore would Melkor make Manwë regret his mere Existence. And finally would Melkor have his rightful place as Elder King.

He lifted his eyes westward to where he knew Taniquetil soared in the heavens. And the fire in his eyes then would have smote any Firstborn as a death knell.

"Rise up mountains and I shall fell them," he spoke, casting his sight to him far across the Sea. "Hallow out valleys and I shall upheave them. Sing unto me your Song, Manwë, and I shall blacken the very Voice of your Soul!" He shouted out the words with the Voice of his Being into the open land, and the surrounding earth quaked as cliffs upon mountains crumbled and Thangorodrim absorbed the bolts of lightning from his gales.

Aye, the day was coming, and Melkor's smile was this time gleeful as he retreated to one of his favorite memories, one that never failed to stay the weeping: He had tendered his mercies on Manwë before. Oh how he remembered, and oh, what a glorious moment in Time it had been! Never while in the Timeless Halls had he been able to do so, but in Eä….The Endless waiting in the Void had been fully worth it when came Manwë's screams. And the sounds of his sufferance had granted to Melkor an ecstasy greater than the warping of Eä's fabric ever did. Manwë had been his, wholly his to do with as he pleased!

But then Tulkas had come.

The thought came as a physical blow, and Melkor visibly quailed as he cowered away from the memory of that particular Vala. And Melkor shuddered as he recalled against his will the sound and Power of Tulkas' laugh. The black clouds surrounding Thangorodrim that sounded out their thunderous roar could not even conquer the mere  _memory_  of Tulkas, not even by a sliver. And in mind's eye an image was summoned, and he trembled at the memory of how even the Sun was shadowed by the brightness of Tulkas' golden hair, never mind how his own Music was drowned out by naught but the unadorned mirth of that accursed Vala of War.

A wave of despair washed over Melkor then as a crimson tide, and he hated Tulkas for it, hated himself for yielding to it! But the despair remained….What if he came again? He recalled easily how Tulkas had always clenched his hands whenever he saw Melkor go by in Valinor. What if he came again? No longer harnessed by Manwë's leash, what if he came again?

No, no! He would think never of it, never of Tulkas. He would not. He would  _not_. Let all his thoughts be bent on what his hands still claimed. And forcefully Melkor turned his thoughts back to what had so occupied his earlier musings: Nelyafinwë.

And a veil impenetrable shrouded Melkor as he retreated deep in thought. For years had the firstborn of Fëanáro resided in Angamando, and for those years had the stalemate lasted. But now Melkor had need to do something else, for in all the years Fëanáro's copper-headed get had graced his fortress, he had pondered time and again if he should turn that Noldo into an Orc.

And time and again Melkor rejected the admittedly savoring temptation. Aye, every fiber of his being ached to continue on with his artwork of old, but being turned into an Orc was too good for Fëanáro, and henceforth, too good for Nelyafinwë. Orc lives were as ants. Without him the thousands upon thousands of Orcs would be scattered leaderless and witless, for without his iron control and purpose upon their wills they would be little better than the dumbest sheep. And their mindset was simple, for Melkor knew Orcs even believed Elves to be crueler than themselves, that Elves took Orcs as captives only for amusement or to eat them. It worked to sustain their delight in tormenting whatever Firstborn fell as putty into their hands. Verily, Melkor made certain to hold the Orcs in their dire thralldom, for in their corruption they had lost almost all possibility of resisting the domination of his will. With a cursory glance Melkor looked beneath him and saw his children shiver as they felt his eye pass over them, the pressure of the Master's gaze too great and terrible to endure.

Aye, as tempting as it was, it would be a pity if any Elf flowing with the blood of Fëanáro was reduced to that. For then what would follow? Even reducing the Incarnate's life to that of his many thralls Melkor had also rejected, tempting as it also was. He had a prince of the Noldor in his hands, the very get of the Spirit of Fire, the rightful King of the Noldor! Such an esteemed and royal person deserved special treatment. And he would be damned if he let slip this opportunity for instead the brief satisfaction of seeing Maitimo as an Orc. Something greater was deserved. Something greater was needed. Something to teach those damnable fierce and fell Noldor to retreat back across the Sea, to lose hope in whatever pretensions they stood on. Something to make all of the House of Fëanáro regret ever stepping foot upon the Lands of Melkor. But what beyond that he already has planned?

So far, Nelyafinwë's screams had been music to Melkor's ears. And oh, how he would smile to hear them again! But not yet, not yet….Something needed doing before Nelyafinwë's descent into the Dark. To start, it was time to again send in Mairon. To send him in to break whatever vain hope sustained the fiery firstborn of Fëanáro.

"Mairon, my dearest," he whispered, the very command of his Voice breaching the unassailable stones of Angamando, and the words fell unto the ears of his most devout servant sitting on his chair with Draugluin resting beneath. And swiftly, he felt Mairon's undivided and fervent attention on him, the Master of Arda Marred, and the smile Melkor gave was as fierce and fell as the ice and fire he so delighted in. "Arise from your seat and go unto our guest, and to him do with what you have been blessed. Wean the Eru-fearing firstborn of Fire from his allegiance and propound to the Child a greater hope of benefit. Propound to him, best beloved, a Lord who will sanction what he desires and not forbid it. Call him to me and bend his knee, and my pleasure you shall know in plenty."

He felt Mairon rise from his chair and Melkor retreated to further thoughts of cunning for his copper-haired thrall. He had rid the World of the first Finwë and the second Finwë he had smote. It was time to heed the needs of the third Finwë. Mayhap now his fire had waned enough to finally do so.

Breaking down the whelp was a delicate process, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lindar: the attested divisionary name of the Teleri in Aman, preferred by the people of Olwë in that they called themselves the Lindar [UT.299].
> 
> Valaraukar: Balrogs  
> Ataressë/amilessë: father-name/mother-name  
> Angamando: Quenya form of Sindarin Angband [HoME X.350]  
> Ungweliantë: Quenya for Ungoliant [HoME V.443]


	2. The Tall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moringotto = Morgoth, Quenya name given by Fëanor  
> Fire-head = a name of the Orcs for Maedhros of my invention

_Cling clang, go the chains, someone's out to find you._  
_Cling clang, oh the chains, the warden's right behind you._  
_Quick now, his seeking chains, approach with their shrill scrape._  
_Don't stop, flee the chains, your last chance to escape!_

 _Drag the chains, drag the chains, with all the strength you may._  
_Drag the chains, drag the chains, ere they drag you away!_  
_Cling clang, go the chains, no more time for fear…._  
_….Cling clang, no the chains! The last sound that you'll hear…._

~ "League of Legends": Thresh, the Chain Warden

**Chapter 2**

Even as Melkor relished in and made stronger the perfume of the sour billows cloaking his stronghold, greater was the reek of fumes belched from the monstrous pillar of the chimney, from which clearly rang the blows of countless smiths. Scorched black from ever filtering smoke were the inner walls of the chimney, for deep in Angamando the fires of the smithies were seldom, if never doused. The caverns were broad and echoed with the sound of lashes through the air, swiftly followed by pained cries that made the Orc overseers jeer.

For many Elves labored at the smithies in their thralldom, working with blistering hands the iron ore constantly delivered by the slaves who mined it deeper in the pit. Elven throats dried and skins burned as forge fires roared, and iron and other metals were quickly molded and hammered into footgear and shields and great spears with broad blades. And all the slaves, hair of dark hue and lithe bodies marked with abuse, they remained suitably cowered by the monsters surrounding them twice their number. Orcs were ever in sight. And Elves wept as they saw the horror of their nightmares made manifest before them: foul creatures bred by subterranean heats and slime, with hearts of granite and their bodies deformed in ways Elven imagination never fathomed.

And never did their foul faces smile, lest it was in glee at them.

And so the Elf-thralls worked, labored and toiled, fear of the relentless lash driving them and terror of greater chastisement cowering them.

But Balcmeg was ill-pleased by their progress thus far, and in a spasm of hate he lashed his whip across the back of the Elf before him for moving too slow. The pitiful creature wailed at the sudden stripes in his skin, blood quickly pooling from beneath. Fell and jagged claws tearing at the iron-shod grip of the many-tailed scourge, the Orc emitted a vicious growl deep from his barrel of a chest and took a step forward to taste the bright blood. But the Elf had already cowered away, hauling his delivery of iron ore behind him.

Balcmeg let him go, growling in displeasure. He wanted to taste the creature's blood, one he had not tasted yet. It looked as savoring as the others. But Master was adamant these critters live to serve and Balcmeg, as all others of his breed, was too fearful of Master to disobey. (He felt his eye on him not a moment ago and had trembled.) All these critters were captured for their strength instead of slain, anyway, immediately set with heavy thrall-work in Master's mines or in Master's smithies. Master seemed satisfied, but Balcmeg felt their servitude to be too easy.

Truthfully, these Elves were boring. Balcmeg hated them for being too boring. True, when properly motivated their shrieks were musical enough and delicate bodies perfect for manhandling; how fun playing with them proved to be, if only to lark at their frail endeavors to worm away. But as much as he thrilled in making them taste fear and despair, Balcmeg hated them. They were too not-ugly. Too undeformed, too unperverted, and too uncumbered by half. Balcmeg grew incensed whenever he made faulty of foot one of these lissome creatures for them only to regain their balance instead of sprawling on the ground. It stopped him from being able to do as he pleased with them further. That and their smooth, pale skin that glowed in the dark was a horrid aberration. Whatever scars he bore they should bear too, and so at the continuing sight of flawless skin abounding Balcmeg brought his scourge whipping across whatever skin was made available of those creatures nearest to him.

But these Elves were still too boring. Like mules, they learned to do as told by Master after a few beatings, but where was the thrill in not being granted opportunities to do violence unto another? Master forbade putting them to death out of pleasure, so nigh all left was boredom. Put to labor, these Elves were not at all as fun as Fire-head.

Balcmeg wrung his malformed fist again on the iron handle. He wanted to go back to Fire-head! These Elves did not bleed like the prisoner, and Balcmeg rightfully belonged there! Master said so. Master said they could take him as a pet, all who had part in taking captive Fire-head. Such numbered many, but Balcmeg had been one of the leaders and should not be overseeing these iron thralls when there was greater iron to beat.

He had been there when Master's forces slaughtered those of Fire-head's. He had been the one to disarm Fire-head, to aid in holding him down as he fought with all the ferocity of madness. He had dug his claws into Fire-head's arms, drawing blood, as the Elf was bound in rope of Master's make and dragged back to Master's fortress like a dumb beast (such an undertaking had been the highlight of Balcmeg's life so far and he had yet to relive such a pleasurable experience). He had been there when Fire-head was brought before Master and stripped to reveal every wound obtained and when Master ordered his mesmerizing, fiery hair to be hacked from his head.

And how Balcmeg had jeered with a vicious roar! For the hair being gracelessly taken from his head had been the best part. Master had gifted a strand to each who helped capture Fire-head and gave the rest to Lieutenant. Balcmeg had his own copper strand tied at his belt, and after ending a brawl between two Orcs over a strand of the hair, Lieutenant spoke he would grant one new strand every time he and fellow Orcs did not flout orders with Fire-head.

Balcmeg had won a fourth strand today, just a while ago. He had been with Fire-head and stopped when told to stop by servant of Master clad in the bodily form of an Orc, and had pulled only one tooth instead of giving into temptation to pull two. Though he hated the Elf, Balcmeg was elated by how quickly Fire-head regrew teeth, for Balcmeg loved pulling teeth and by the reactions of Fire-head, it proved more entertaining than pulling fingernails, though that was fun too. But ripping out nails was not as effective and going to pull a tooth evoked far more terror and pain in Fire-head as few other things did (and a lot more blood).

Balcmeg glanced down at his four strands of hair, glinting like fire in the blaze of the forges, and the tooth he had pulled tied at the end, already licked clean of its blood. Fire-head's reaction had been like a fine meal of fresh meat, and though servant of Master had said stop, he and the other Orcs had felt generous enough to torture Fire-head elsewhere for a good while longer (to turn away his mind from the torment in his mouth). But then servant of Master had shooed them away. He wanted to go back to Fire-head. The scent of fear in this cavern of smithies was great, but more potent and thrilling was it in Fire-head's vault. Maybe with the evidence of his fourth strand of hair, servant of Master would let him peel skin again and –

Balcmeg suddenly tensed, knots of muscle bunching grotesquely beneath sallow skin. Someone was coming. Scalding hot the air already was (by the sweat of the Elves, anyway), its temperature suddenly soared until even in the dim lighting the air was seen to shimmer with the heat. And the crimson glow flickering and emitting from hundreds of furnaces were eclipsed as a darker presence made himself known. And Balcmeg shivered, joining other Orcs in mewling discontent. It was him! Lieutenant was coming; conquering by his mere presence the potency of the fire's light as he had never seen any other do, save Master.

Lieutenant entered the vast chamber, coming to a halt just before the nearest forge and casting his gaze about, blithely ignoring how those thralls nearest to his feet shied away in abject fear. Balcmeg was unable to relish the taste of such fear, for at the sight of Lieutenant he was blinded and he clawed at the searing pain in his head, struggling not to cower himself. Such an attempt failed and Balcmeg shuffled back several steps, grinding his teeth and shaking his head as he worked to focus his attention on the terrible one that went beyond description.

Lieutenant continued on searching the conclave of Orc and Elf with his bright eyes and Balcmeg shivered at the realization he was not looking about at the thralls, but at the Orcs. A high-pitched snivel emerged from his throat before he could stop it and he hoped by fire it went unheard. Lieutenant was beloved of Master and had ear of Master. Only those of recalcitrant behavior were brought to the attention of Master. Lieutenant was too much of swiving importance to supervise heavy work of thralls!

But the quiet sound did not go unobserved and Lieutenant's eyes snapped over to rest on him. And such a gaze felt to pierce Balcmeg to the core of his being, remaining to sizzle there as hot iron, and Balcmeg mewled even more, clawing at his chest until skin broke and black blood welled to the surface. A presence beyond endurance scorched the surface of his mind and tore through, and then Balcmeg found his yellow eyes being centered on Lieutenant.

And Lieutenant, with an eyebrow slightly raised, was regarding him with a hint of amused contempt playing in his eyes. Always Lieutenant clad himself in the disgusting form of these Incarnates and Balcmeg was at a loss as to why. But thinking proved challenging, and anyway Lieutenant was gesturing him forward with a single hand.

"Come," he ordered, smooth voice resonating within the cupola of rock. "And light a torch." Lieutenant pivoted on his heel and walked away, not even bothering to see his command followed.

But Balcmeg felt a shiver of dark delight soar through his blood. Light a torch! That meant he was going back to Fire-head! Balcmeg's mouth salivated at the thought of his blood and he scrambled to set a spark to the kindling of a torch.

O = O = O

Focus on the splinter. Just focus on the splinter, the sharp, napping pinch of pain in the tip of his finger. It was there, miniscule and tangible only by its bite, but it was there. Obtained by futile clawing at the manacles about his wrists, uncounted slivers of metal had lodged themselves in the tips of his fingers and under nails. But this new splinter was pleasant in its throbbing irritation. The very tip of his ring finger, it was there, just beneath the ragged nail, with sharp pain lancing through at the slightest movement.

Maitimo made an effort and brought his finger closer to his eye. All his fingers were bloodied and ripped raw beyond recognition from clawing at his chains, but Maitimo knew with certainty he spied a glimpse of iron beneath the blood, the butt of the metal sliver still protruding from his skin. He could see it, he knew he could: a spot near indiscernible that shined but a shade darker than the drying blood around it. He bent the finger and, slowly, the pinch of pain soared to life at the tip and traveled down along –

_Whack!_

Maitimo arched under the thrash of fire, greater than the previous ones, and all manner of thought and attention was uncouthly thrust back into reality. Splinter now nonexistent, Maitimo shut his eyes, trying to escape back into the deepest, most isolated part of his being. But it was fruitless, for all dimensions of reality swarmed back, puncturing his mind like ruthless knives. The conclave of Orcs surrounding him: their stench of sulfur and mire, their hideous stature broad and sallow-skinned, and their laughter like that of clashing metal.

Down came the lash again, wrapping around to hook to the tender skin of his stomach and rip through it with a mighty heave. Maitimo wanted to scream, and he did try, but his throat was so raw and spent that the most he could emit were gasps and moans. Of what remained of the analytical part of his mind, he made out three Orcs attending him while countless more stood about to enjoy the sport. Though his vision swarmed and blurred, he could see the many legs, legs that could have been dead boles of a drowned forest for how they looked.

Maitimo tensed as he suddenly felt ragged claws on his shoulder blade. He gasped, turning his face into the grout beneath him as he felt the talons hook his skin and tear it apart, like tearing a cloth, slow and steady. He struggled to move away, but the feeble movements exhausted him so greatly he could not move at all.

"Back!"

He could have wept in relief when the Úmaia barked out the word. (He knew him to be an Úmaia, for though it was difficult to differentiate at times, he had learned quite quickly of the Orcs' hatred for any discernible speech and only those who he deduced to be servants of Moringotto bothered to speak at all). "Back!" came the command again, and Maitimo felt more naked than he did already as the space around him became breathable once more: Orcs scurried away at the Úmaia's order as though it were an actual physical blow, and they growled and roared their angry discontent, iron-shod feet scraping at the ground with enough force to grate on the ears.

Maitimo went limp, muscles utterly exhausted from the prolonged strain of remaining so tense. He neither knew nor cared what the Orcs were doing or where they went, though by their harsh voices sounding from further away he assumed they left the vault, or all but one did. He could still sense the Úmaia near him, clad as an Orc, standing at his feet, the un-orcish calmness of his breath echoing off the rock walls. There was no light in this prison, but Maitimo could just see the near imperceptible outline of his scarred legs. He was just standing there, facing him, and he felt his heartbeat quicken in panic.

 _Please_ , he anguished,  _not the chains. Not the chains!_

But too late, for the Úmaia suddenly moved and grabbed hold of the chains that bound him in more ways than one. And he heaved, dragging Maitimo back to the iron rings jammed in the wall and weaving the chains through the rings in a way impossible to unravel. He let out a silent scream, nothing left to give any voice, and closed his eyes tightly as he cringed at the agony of the chains pulling at his skin.

When first thrown by Moringotto into this abyss, he had given little in being cooperative with his captors, namely nothing. His will had been great to break free from this underworld and his fear not suppressive enough to refrain from acting on that will. But such a bid for freedom had come dearly. With a show of strength that had startled his captors, Maitimo had broken his first chains, Orc-crafted. But the second set had proved a worse punishment than any he had prepared himself for. He had been forced to watch their remaking, crafted this time by the hands of an Úmaia of great skill at the forge, and the chains' links had been interlaced with a fine wire of iron barbed with teeth. If the impregnability of the Úmaia's chains made it impossible to escape them, the teethed wire discouraged him from even twitching in them.

And now his skin bore the weight of his body as those chains pulled him back against the wall; skin of his elbows, shoulders and knees, already a bloodied mess, tore even more and his wrists and ankles he feared would be forever scarred, even if he should live to the end of Arda.

The Úmaia left. Lost in the haze of pain, Maitimo neither heard nor saw him leave, but no matter how deceiving the Úmaia attempted to be in the body of an Orc, the dark energy radiating from him was as perceptible as the icy air of Losgar. Besides, by Maitimo's knowledge, no Orc of Angamando moved so light of foot and with such unearthly grace. Metal grated harshly on metal and the slam of the iron door to his vault followed. Maitimo wanted to weep in relief at being left alone, but no water was in his body to produce the tears.

For a long while he lay there, daring not even one part of him to twitch as what remained of his mind focused on lessening the pain. The metallic taste of blood was in his mouth, jaw where teeth had been pulled ached with a wave of agony come every beat of his heart, lungs burned with the effort to breathe, muscles seared with endless fire, and skin…he wished skin never existed.

Before he knew it he was drifting again, willing all mind, conscience and spirit to retreat into the furthest corner of his fëa, cloaking himself with whatever sanity still remained as a shield against the onslaught of nightmares working to pierce and shred that little corner apart. And with such withdrawal came a lessening of the physical agony, and Maitimo's last cognizant thought was why they were cursed to live when quietude existed so much more in not-living.

A year. Any sense of Time was lost in this damnable prison, but his analytical mind ticked away the remembered length of days and he figured a year must have passed since that ill-fated day, when he had learned too late that to do evil unto evil was to welcome greater evil being done unto him. Not that he cared anymore. Time was now measured by the intervals of the dreaded sound of his door scraping open, when he had to suffer the mind-meddling of the Bright One, or worse, when he was forced on the whim of Moringotto to undergo the Vala's presence. Any semblance of light to diminish the consuming darkness of this dank hole was as nonexistent as Time. But though such bottomless black eliminated Maitimo's sense of sight, he could feel and smell the stale scent of moisture on the wall and would really go and lick it up if only he could move.

A tickle. He could feel a tickling sensation somewhere and his conscience inexorably surfaced to the present, wondering what ruthlessly disturbed his retreat so. He realized it was a spider crawling on his foot and fury simmered in his chest. He tried to ignore it, tried to retreat back into that blissful haven of nonliving, but the little tapping of legs on already nerve-rankled skin was worthy of all the curses his father had heaped on Moringotto. Running a hot rod against his ribcage again would be less bothersome.

Reacting before thinking, he whipped the insect off with a small kick and then let out an inaudible cry as one thing happened after another; the chains dug deeper into the flesh of his ankles, pain lanced through his inoperable knee, shot up his leg, through his hip and into the several ribs he knew to be fractured. Inevitably, he jerked, more of a shake really. Muscles tensed again as waves of pure agony washed over him, the pain of every wound flaring to intensity once more. A whimper escaped his lips and he tried to start breathing again, his rasping harsh even to his own ears. And thus was he rendered immovable on the caked ground of filth again. These Orcs may act dumber than the lowest chicken and more vicious than the most rabid of creatures, but they and their masters knew what they did.

O = O = O

_Splash!_

Maitimo jerked awake in shock at the cold feeling of water on his face. And through the red haze of pain that again clouded his mind with such drastic movement in his chains, he made out the shadow of one standing over him. It was the Orcish Úmaia. The monster was smiling at him, teeth pointed and yellow and creased in some form of sadistic pleasure.

"Aww," he purred, his voice grating and harsh. "Poor pet fell asleep. Little Elf chose to partake not of his water for the day. Whatever shall he do?" Maitimo finally made out the roughly carved tankard clutched in the clawed hand as the Úmaia turned it upside down. And both watched, the Úmaia in delight and Maitimo in grief, as what remained of the water lazily grew into a fat drop, hanging and bobbing from the rim until it broke free, landing alongside the Elf's head not a handbreadth away.

The Úmaia again chuckled and tossed the wooden mug through the opened door of his vault. "Until tomorrow, pretty thing. In the heat of smithies water is precious and can be not so wasted as you have just done."

Anger, despair, panic…. Maitimo briefly wondered if he should feel now any one of these, having felt them each in such a scenario, whether with being denied murky water or food so rough it scraped the roof of his mouth raw. But conjuring up some emotion was draining and, in the end, he decided to feel nothing. The Úmaia was obviously waiting for some reaction, but Maitimo's gaze slid down from his until near the floor, limply staring at nothing. He started to again search for the splinter in his finger.

The Úmaia bared his teeth, growling, and moved faster than Maitimo's brain could register. He crouched down and grabbed hold of his face, uncaring that his claws broke into the skin, and forced the Elf's eyes on him once more. Maitimo nearly fainted from the pain that flared to life in his mouth, never mind elsewhere. By now his jaw might have lessened to a dull ache, but the gaping hole from the last tooth pulled still bled.

The Úmaia smiled at him again and it was far from pleasant. "Learn some manners you will, sweet one." The monster ran his tongue over Maitimo's cheek, lapping up the blood that welled beneath his claws. The blood still came, settling over old blood already hardened against the pallid skin. He tried to turn away and the Úmaia cackled at his ill-concealed disgust.

He patted his cheek, making him wince. "But not now," he demurred gruffly. And then he again smiled, and that wicked smile spoke all the danger Maitimo needed to understand. "Now," the Úmaia purred, leaning in closer with yellow eyes alight with glee, "you have a visitor. Your friend, dear and loving to your heart."

Pure panic erupted in Maitimo at the realization of whom the Úmaia spoke and he started trembling. "No," he rasped, some of his voice having come back. No, not the Bright One. His heart now pounding with very real fear, Maitimo started to move away, these skin-shredding chains be damned. A cough tore through his chest and a trickle of blood fell from the corner of his mouth. "No," he rasped again with a dry sob. Force the limbs to move. Forget the pain.

The Úmaia bared his Orc-fangs at him. "Yes," he hissed. Reaching above him, the Úmaia disentangled the chains from their iron rings and Maitimo was once more subjected to being dragged from the wall to the center of his vault, grit of the ground bringing back the fire of his wounds. The agonizing move left him gasping for breath, the Úmaia huffing in amusement.

Lost in another haze, Maitimo never registered the pat on his cheek, the Úmaia making for the iron wrought entrance, or the door grating and slamming shut (though the Úmaia remained in the chamber). And the agony gradually faded only to be replaced by the utter despair of what was to come.

Valar, whatever higher power still had mercy enough to listen, please. Please no. Let him take another beating, more humiliating, tighter chains, anything but the Bright One! Maitimo did not know if he could mentally survive another visit from  _him_. Something happened whenever the Bright One came, something he still could not describe, for every time he felt part of his sanity be shredded beyond repair and death was all the more enticing. Never did he imagine someone could compare to his forced audiences with Moringotto on his throne, but the Bright One came close. Oh so close. Eru spare him from such. Why was it so difficult to fall asleep and never again wake? Why could his hands and feet not be so tightly bound? He pulled on them tighter, dark blood seeping through the links, that he might be free of them and flee. Though flee to where he did not know.

Maitimo caught the dim sound through the door of an echoing march of an Orc, hobnailed boots excitedly pounding on the stone pathway and growing louder. His heart was in his throat and eyes wide and dark as he stared at the door, waiting, dreading.

Without warning, the door swung open with such a force that the air shifted around him…and then it was as though a thousand knives pierced through his skull as an Orc stepped in, bearing a torch. A lit torch. Maitimo squeezed his eyes shut, the light of the flame searing his eyes like a brand and swiftly inducing a pounding ache in his head. He groaned as it persisted, able to see a smidgen of light even through his eyelids. Eyes would be forming tears now if he was not so dehydrated, but they only burned. He wanted to wail, wishing the light would go away. Damn the light, he wanted it dark again!

"Open your eyes."

Maitimo froze. His heart stopped and, against his own accord, his eyes opened in his shock of that voice, eyes nearly black from dilation. His eyes adjusted with a blur, but it was still painful. The brightness of the torchlight had faded, but only because it had been eclipsed by a greater light, a greater light that was somehow darker in its brilliant devastation. Maitimo's gaze went up and over to that greater source, to the being standing over him.

It was  _him_. And as always, Maitimo was taken aback by the beauty in his stance and surreal fairness of his complexion. Clad in a form akin to his own, in his eyes showed the depth and wonders of a time before Time, of existence that made this World seem feeble. Under the torchlight his hair shined darker than the deepest pit, and the slight smile at his mouth was kind and disarming. The Bright One. The one Maitimo had witnessed remake his chains, calm and sure in all he did. Maitimo knew him to be of the Úmaiar, high in the favor of Moringotto, but never had he heard a whisper of his name. All Maitimo knew was the dread that engulfed him every time the Bright One came to  _talk_ …and that part of him anticipated his presence. And Maitimo hated himself for it.

But more was his hate for  _him_. Fair of face and sweet of words he may be, but Maitimo had long learned of the terror beneath it all. The unknown shrouded him and Maitimo did not know how to pierce it. And his body shivered as the dark ecstasy that surrounded the Bright One softly but firmly caressed his fëa. Maitimo despaired: it was already starting.

The Bright One tilted his head ever so slightly, looking down on the Elf with soft regard. The sound of shuffling feet sounded in the vast space and then stopped as the Bright One held up a hand, never removing his gaze from Maitimo. "I bid you remain, Fankil," he said, his voice smooth. "Balcmeg, take the torch and stand silent at the door."

Fankil. Ahh, so that was the name of that despicable Úmaia clad as an Orc. Through squinted eyes, Maitimo saw the Úmaia in question sturdy his stance and cross his arms while the other Orc did as bid, grumbling in what sounded like displeasure. Maitimo furrowed his brow, wishing they all would just away and leave him in his misery.

The Bright One moved on light feet and in all grace crouched down beside the bound Elf. Maitimo trembled, too terrified to hate himself for that too.

"Shh," the Bright One softly voiced with a sweet smile. His fingers were gentle as he swept back the blood-matted hair. "Hush now, little one. Let not your heart be troubled, for you know I come not to hurt you, no?"

Maitimo did not answer (if he even could) and instead closed his eyes and desperately tried to retreat back within himself.

The Bright One tsked, brushing his fingertips against a cheek and Maitimo could have screamed as they burned his open abrasions, so glacial was their touch. "Now, now, such is no good," the Bright One said lightly, almost teasingly. "Why turn from what I offer? You know you want it."

Maitimo wanted to shake his head, had he the strength, wanted to make it clear that, no, he did not want it. But too late again, for the Bright One reached out and placed a flawless hand on his forehead, even as Maitimo cringed away from it. A moment passed. And then, like a mighty wind blowing away storm clouds, the agony in mind and body eased, rolling back and withdrawing. Wounds remained unhealed, but their excruciation was now held at bay.

But even as his body visibly sagged in relief, rage soared through Maitimo and he wanted to tear the Bright One apart for taking away the pain! Taking away the pain meant giving back what the pain took away: awareness, and all Maitimo's senses soared in full cognizance of his surroundings. Though his eyes still ached in the torchlight, he could see the rock walls of his vault were not simple rock but crumbled and pigeon-holed with webs and nests of creatures he did not even want to think about, and a sheen of mildew and what looked like slime coated crevice to crevice. The stench was unbearable: the lingering smell of Orc bodies and his own blood (which had been splattered or shed all over the ground and the chains were caked in it). Up above near the smithies it was smoldering with heat, but down here the air was freezing, making him shiver for a whole other reason. And the harshest sounds met his sensitive ears, from hammer blows to Orc laughter to metal clashing to ground quaking.

But focusing on his surroundings was not enough to ignore that which made his fëa really quail: the utter desolation of Law and Harmony. It was so palpable, that Discord, so very real and it worked to scourge his fëa with mighty rents just like the Orcs did with his body. Maitimo loved the Bright One for relieving him of the pain, but he hated him with every fiber of his being for taking away such a shield. One time the Bright One had somehow deduced this and had retracted his  _gift_ , which only made Maitimo hate him more for bringing back the physical torment on every part of his body while taking away his troubles in the fëa, the only buffer against it.

The Bright One continued with his obscene touch, sweeping both hair and dried blood off the Elf's forehead. "There," he said tenderly. "Always you fret and always you learn." He tapped the forehead. "Look at me, little one."

His eyes opened and immediately he wished they had not. Not only were the Bright One's eyes more potent than all the stars combined, but they felt to pierce him, uncovering him in a way not even his nakedness did…. _And then he felt it_. Nearly undetectable at first, a foreign presence skimmed his mind as how two bubbles would touch without bursting. And then with one firm thrust came the worst of it all, the mental barriers being cast down like a fortified gate before a battering ram. Never did Maitimo feel more stripped of dignity than when came the Bright One's invasion of his mind, and his own sense of self was beaten down by the greater presence now made manifest in his head, surrounding him even as this impenetrable tomb did his body.

Maitimo forced his eyes open again as the Bright One shifted a little, leaning back only just. The Bright One tilted his head again and Maitimo felt something akin to fingers cyphering through his thoughts – more an inspection than a deduction concerning the contents of a closed room – and the fingers flicked through thought after thought no matter how hard he tried to resist it.

"Do your eyes hurt?" the Bright One asked, his tone of idle curiosity. "Would you that I be rid of the torchlight?"

Maitimo turned his face away, disgust with the lot of them washing over him and wishing darkly for them all to be cast into the deepest pit of Arda.

The Bright One tsked again, shaking his head in disapproval, though in his eyes lurked dark amusement. "Learn some manners you must. And already we are in the deepest pits of the Lord's World." Silence followed and the Bright One idly tapped the chains holding Maitimo's body to such stillness. "Wish you for me to remove these chains?"

Maitimo shivered at the tap on the chains, direly praying the Bright One would himself go away. The Bright One chuckled.

"Not so, my sweet," he said, a smile in his voice. "I go nowhere, for the time is meet that we have a little understanding." He swept back a few more strands of stringy hair. "Time to talk."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Balcmeg: a leader of the Orcs slain by Tuor amid the fall of Gondolin [HoME II.182]. That he took part in Maedhros' captivity is my own invention  
> Fankil: a fallen Maia and servant of Melkor who eluded the Valar and escaped into the world at the downfall of Utumno [HoME I.114.269]  
> The Bright One: Maedhros, unknowing of the identity of Sauron, draws only from his observations and applies the descriptive title as a sobriquet as the only familiar point of reference. The application of this name is my invention.
> 
> Time measurement: As Maedhros guesses the duration of his imprisonment so far, he makes mention of it being a year. During all previous history before the rising of the Sun, the only measurement of time acknowledged and utilized by Exilic Noldor is Valian years, and one Valian year is just shy of 10 solar years. Maedhros, imprisoned in Angband, is still completely unaware of sun, moon, or seasons, so when he says one year, he means 10 of our years. As for the location of this story in the timeline of history, by the Annals of Valinor Maedhros was imprisoned for one Valian year and then hung by his wrist from the precipice of Thangorodrim for over three Valian years.
> 
> Elven teeth: The principle of adult Firstborn regrowing lost teeth is unfounded canonically but inspired by the story "Twentynine White Horses" by Jael the Scribe over on ffn.net (who credits Nieriel Raina for originality)
> 
> Elven thralldom: the current Elves forced in servitude in Angband are not Noldor, but Moriquendi, theoretically [HoME XI.16] taken captive during the first battle of Beleriand that led to the establishment of the Girdle of Melian and the renaming of Eglador to Doriath


	3. The Bright One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kanafinwë/Makalaurë: Maglor, his ataressë/amilessë

"The words of his mouth were smoother than butter.  
His words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords."  
~ Psalm 55:21

**Chapter 3**

_Time to talk_. Such simple words manifested the horror in his mind as no others did and his fëa quailed in the raw terror they evoked. Though shaking already from the cold, tremors newly wracked Maitimo's body as panic coursed unheeded through his blood. The Bright One remained by his side and, in vain effort to escape what he knew was coming, Maitimo willed his enfeebled limbs to move, frail writhes in unfrail chains, but it did not matter. Damn all pain to be had! He needed to away himself from this iron-gaol before it was too late! Again, too late.

He knew his shifting was making it obvious how he wanted to abscond from this hell of iron, but the Bright One just moved along with him, going from crouch to kneel and reaching out with strong hands. "Shh. Lay still, little one," he crooned. "Why be you always so distraught?"

Maitimo felt the cold hands on his shoulders and groaned as he was turned away from the wall. "No," he managed to rasp, but the single word ravaged his throat all over again. He knew what was to come, what always came, and he would welcome any other torment in place of it, even at the hands of the Orcs who just left. He could do nothing as his face was upturned by gentle fingers and, with a soft command in his mind to look up, Maitimo opened his eyes and found his gaze held captive by the dark, mesmerizing one above him.

A moment passed.

Then, with no warning, Maitimo opened his mouth in a silent scream as he felt what sanity remained of his mind be twisted by the astral hands of that foreign Presence he could scarce discern from his own Self. Twist and twist. Maitimo could have then cried all the tears in the world, even as his fëa wailed in abject despair on several levels.

The twisting finally eased and his brain could little compute thought into words, so dizzy was everything now. Maitimo instead focused on gasping for breath, lungs burning with their abuse. But the Bright One spoke on even so.

"Again, always you fret and always you learn," he said endearingly, a slight smile at the corner of his mouth. "Few better things are there in this World than the easing of a mind that is fretting away with worry. Always upon my coming shall it be a gift I grant you, my sweet." A pause, a soft tilt of the head, and an alien shimmer in those ancient eyes that came and went all too swiftly. The fair face grew fairer as the Bright One's smile grew, and Maitimo could feel an astral finger holding open a particular thought. "You crave reprieve and I shall make it so. Let us free you of these chains for a greater embrace."

Maitimo heard the Bright One's words more in mind than by ear and a dark shiver of warmth raced down his spine as they settled into his memory. But his brow furrowed even as he heard them. What spoke the Bright One of? What had he been  _fretting away with worry_  about? With a brief flare of will Maitimo searched the vaults of his memory but could recall nothing of the last few moments. A fresh slate could be not emptier. It had been wiped clean. Something was there, Maitimo felt, just beyond reach, but the knowledge of how great the effort must be to reach out and grasp that something made him visibly sag in defeat.

Still, the latter words of the Bright One impinged on his conscience and Maitimo's lack of coherence grew sharper, just ever so slightly, as he heard their echo in his mind. Chains. Free. He understood what that meant and he tensed as his eyes suddenly registered two unmarred hands grasping the iron links.

The segment of time it took to remove the chains passed in a blur and Maitimo's eyes clouded over in anguish anew at the delicate feel of each barb snagging and tearing muscle and skin as it was pulled free, some barbs taking flesh with them. Hot blood seeped from the unplugged wounds, burning the surrounding sensitized skin. Clinking and shrill dragging of metal on stone echoed in the vault, and as the last of the chains were removed, their punctures all too familiar to acknowledge, Maitimo lay there unmoving and with no will to move (any form of restraint had not been needed for a long time).

Maitimo nearly began drifting again but then startled awake as he recalled the last part of the Bright One's words.  _Greater embrace_. Despite the glow of the torchlight his eyes dilated as the harsh trembling started again. Maitimo felt the familiar bout of self-loathing for showing such fear, but he did not care, for he was terrified to his fëa of what he knew was coming next.

The Bright One tsked in soft amusement. "Slowly learn you your lessons."

Maitimo cringed as those familiar, cold hands took hold of him and, heeding no wound great or small, heaved him up until he was half cradled in leather-clad arms. He could not hold back the whimper, having no strength to fight his being manhandled, not with how his body was still trembling from his meager efforts to crawl away earlier. His soiled hair fell into the crook of the Bright One's arm and Maitimo closed his eyes as he came in direct view of the torch. Never would he have thought light could be so punishing.

"Wish you for me to rid this vault of torchlight?" A cat would purr at how enticing the words were, and though Maitimo voiced nothing, he wanted to yell for him to, wanted to cry yes.

And he died a little more inside, knowing well the payment for such a want.

Another moment of unnerving silence passed and, suffering the alien Presence within, Maitimo could feel the Bright One narrow his eyes. "So be it. Balcmeg," the Bright One called with a ring of dangerous authority, "leave us and be rid of the torch, and return you here with water."

There was a deep growl from the Orc, followed by a shuffling of footsteps and bobbing of torchlight along the vault walls that disappeared as the cell door was slammed shut. And the vault was plunged into utter blackness once again.

A soft hand swept across his forehead, the gesture seeming to be more for instilling trust and calm into a wounded animal, and the hand did so repeatedly until Maitimo's eyes were willed open. "Feeling better?" the Bright One asked softly.

Maitimo stared at him, that familiar fascinated horror cloaking him that never grew old no matter how many visits the Bright One made. His eyes again dilated fully in the utter dark of the vault, and though all was in pitch blackness, Maitimo could clearly see the Bright One who emitted his own Light, but not as that found in any Maia of Aman. The Bright One's Light of Being was somehow wholly dark, dark and seductive and promising of dark secrets. But the relief at the absence of torchlight was great and Maitimo sighed at the reprieve, loving that absolute dark had returned.

The Bright One chuckled. "As I thought," he murmured. "But," he added with a grin, voice eerily sweet, "you know well by now that to accept the gift of darkness is to accept the entirety of that gift."

Maitimo did know and wept at the knowing, tears dry and chest tight as he lifted trembling hands in the vain attempt to ward off the Bright One's own from descending onto his chest. But the Bright One merely pushed his aside, laying hand and fingers flat against the bloodied skin over the Elf's heart. Maitimo waited, wanting to cry out, even as his body remained tense in expectation.

Swiftly and fiercely, a dark ecstasy wholly engulfed Maitimo, overriding his senses and relentlessly caressing his fëa with every vulgarity to exist. For an eternal moment Time was nonexistent and Maitimo grew greater in self-disgust and hate as part of him reveled in the dark delight, and sickness grew within him. Devastating and wholly consuming it was, and in the Touch of the Bright One Maitimo knew nothing of anything that was or is, nothing but that dark ecstasy. And so it remained until on the brink of his fëa being irreparably fractured. Then the sensation eased from the Bright One's hand and the Bright One held Maitimo close, even as he turned his head away to vomit, the ailing of his fëa making itself known on his hröa. But there was nothing in his stomach to come up and for several everlasting moments his body was spent with the wracking of dry heaving, worsening everything as his countless wounds came to life with each jerking movement, bone and muscle and flesh.

But the misery in body was nothing compared to the sickness he felt in fëa, and he despaired of ever being free of it.

The Bright One tsked again as he cradled him close and rocked him, smiling sadly down at the Elf now insensible in his arms, his eyes glittering in the dark. "So great again is your grief, Child," he softly murmured, as though in grief himself, "and I feel it consume your fëa. You despair, and needlessly so. Have I come not with relief and rest?"

Indeed he had, Maitimo conceded, his head pained by the confusion. It was a miracle enough he had managed to put together a coherent thought, but all shining bright in his dim memory at the moment was how the Bright One has always come with relief and rest. Always with every visit he came with gifts, words of truth and a Voice alluring and trusting to hear, touches seductive and gentle –

 _No!_ Maitimo screamed, struggling and failing to tear away his mind from musings that were not his own. But the alien Presence was too great. Maitimo's inner Self of all little remaining sanity looked up from the black bottom of a pool, working with desperation in its purest form to tear his way through the endless web of lies and truths and half-truths, searching for naught but the Truth. But…what was Truth? Maitimo's eyes burned with the need for tears, grieving anew for everything he no longer remembered. What was Truth? Did it still exist? Of course it did, for without Truth there was nothing to stand the test of Time. Without Truth there were no lies, and if Maitimo knew anything anymore, it was that lies had abounded in destroying him, destroying all he knew and loved.  _He knew lies were there!_  Lies, the cause of their Doom. Lies, the reasons he lay naked in this iron prison! Moringotto had….Moringotto said….What were the lies again? Terror grew as Maitimo worked to recall the lies of Moringotto, but…nothing was there. Why were they not there? It was blurred, all the memories a blur. But Maitimo knew them to be there. They had to be there. Something had to be there! It was the lies, it had to be, but….He was so confused.

He did not need to open his eyes to see the small smile crease the Bright One's visage. He felt it in his mind. But with a great bout of will, he forced it aside, no matter the searing stab of pain in his left temple it caused. Frantically Maitimo searched vault after vault of memory and was left defeated.  _What were the lies!_  Of any nature there had to be lies and Maitimo _had_  to find them, tearing desperately through vaults of memory to do so. For without lies there was no Truth, no absolutes. He needed to remember the lies, for what else greater defined Truth than the unveiling of lies?

 _Pain_. Maitimo felt a brief thrill of elation at the intuition. Absolutes also defined Truth, and pain  _was_  an absolute. And how ruthlessly his body suffered harmony with it. He turned his thoughts to his hröa and his lungs burned on with every rasping breath. Stripes in his flesh remained merciless in flaring their fire. As is the way of the assuage from abuse, muscle had set unnaturally, so greatly that he did not know anymore where one pang began and ended, if he even cared to know at all. Though the Bright One had soothed away his unbearable companion, the pain's level of excruciation was still great. To retreat from it all was peace, a semblance of it. To turn within his Self and flee to the solitude, to the last of places untouched by madness, gathering the scraps of his shredding soul as a cloak against that threatening to ultimately devour him. Against the onslaught of Living that he might again search for the door to nonliving.

The Bright One's slight smile grew and he bowed his head and kissed the Elf upon his brow.

The gradual struggle of retreating into the furthest corner of his fëa shattered immediately. Maitimo's eyes flew wide open, gasping in shock as the soft brush of lips burned his skin with the sizzling heat of a fire brand. Bruised muscles contracted throughout as Maitimo fought to free himself from the warm embrace, for pure survival instinct ignited the will to escape the further damage to his body. Would a tap on the shoulder have been too much trouble to gain his attention?

But such pitiful struggling earned him only the sting of all wounds again. Wretched, nigh void of hope and craving an end to it all, Maitimo fell limp into the arms that never released their tender hold on him. His throat was tight with suppressed cries and Maitimo saw the Bright One grow in splendor as he again smiled in silence, leaning down to bestow another kiss, this one cool and sweet and kind.

"Know we better now?" he said, the words so honeyed that the hint of warning barely came through. "I come and I speak and you listen, not retreat to where there is no listening. Ever have I demanded more?"

No, he had not. Always he brought his many gifts, not the least being the absence of Orcs and their torment, and the subsiding of his suffering was so immense there was no word to describe it. Even now at the will of the Bright One the hellfire ruling his flesh was still held at bay, contained behind a sluice gate. Though a semblance still remained of that hellfire to remind Maitimo that all the Bright One had to do was will the gate open for it to all come rushing back, all without mercy.

Even now it stayed off as a dimmed memory, for not even the Bright One's arms tight around his body inflamed certain wounds overmuch, though the further tearing and pulling at the removal of the chains still burned. Maitimo moaned. Damn those chains.

The Bright One gave a slow nod. "You know I regret making those chains for you," he said, his tone apologetic. "But to leave here is to commit grave error, for the King of Arda would speak words you must be willing to heed. But because you are yet not ready in mind to listen, we must keep you until you are.

"But this you know and I digress." Silence came and went as the Bright One paused to run his fingers through his copper hair, some places matted from the mixture of dried blood and filth. He paid no heed to Maitimo cringing away from the touch and spoke on. "We speak on matters unneeded to be spoken of. Let us talk now of the reason I came. And remember you my bidding to listen, for no harm exists in bending your ear."

Maitimo could have snorted in amused disgust had he not been devoid of joy and shaken to his core by what he heard. He well remembered the last  _talk_ , and several before that (it was almost all he could remember with any sense of clarity). And he had learned quickly from them that the Bright One was a rose bush housing a serpent, for he had grown enraged with such a fury that it had lashed at Maitimo's fëa. He had struck him, yelled in a voice deafening to his ears, and the anger in his eyes had been brighter than all the forges of Angamando.

"Now, now, little one, let us not recall that," the Bright One mildly rebuked, speaking with amused indulgence as though Maitimo were a child indeed. A mother could have not spoken more endearingly to her newborn babe. "And awry must your thoughts be, for forget you that I was never angered, let alone enraged? Nay, for I bore not even impatience at your lacking."

As the Bright One talked he moved his hand to the side of Maitimo's head, pressing his fingertips against skin still wet with blood just above the temple. He moved them in a circular motion, massaging the pattern into his head again and again, slowly and soothingly. He continued the action, slightly rocking Maitimo as he did, and never stopped until he himself stopped speaking. Running a thumb over a bruise on his cheek, the Bright One waited.

Maitimo's eyes had fallen shut under the repetitive ministrations, having recognized the Touch but powerless to resist it. Now he opened his eyes and stared blearily up at the Bright One, wincing as he felt the touch leave and a thumb brush across a bruise on his face. Maitimo blinked. What just happened? Why did the Bright One watch him so, and in such silence? He fought hard to search his memory, to find whatever had made the Bright One touch his face and hair, but nothing was there but a blank page, thoroughly unmarked.

"Forget you our conversation?" the Bright One enquired, and he grinned as Maitimo looked up at him, awry emotions swimming in his pained gaze. "Let us remember, for we spoke of our past conversations and my treatment of you. Remember you now? I was patient. I was kind. Ever did I grant you kiss and embrace and abundance in gifts. And for it you loved me. Hear me, precious one. Hear me and remember rightly the truths I speak."

This time as he spoke the Bright One moved hand to forehead and repeatedly caressed it, smoothing back hair and wiping away blood, and Maitimo's eyes again closed under the touch, powerless to resist. Again, the Bright One ended the soothing gesture with his last words and again waited for him to open his eyes. And when Maitimo did the Bright One tilted his head, a smile playing at his lips. "Forget you our conversation? Let us remember, for we spoke of our past conversations and my treatment of you. Forget you how I treated you?"

Maitimo blinked up at him. The image of the Bright One swam in and out of focus as he furrowed his brow, feeling as though he had heard those words once already. Maitimo searched his memory to make sense of what the Bright One said and recalled indeed the past conversations, shivering at the content they included, but remembering well how the Bright One had been always patient and kind, ever granting him comfort in kisses and embraces and his many gifts. Though terrified, Maitimo remembered always being grateful, especially in that the Bright One had never been angry.

His eyes focused to find the Bright One nodding. "Yes, you remember well, little one. Be not so distraught."

Yes. Yes indeed, Maitimo could remember it very well.

 _No! No, no, no._  Maitimo inwardly wailed in despair at the knowing that something else was there. He heard a sigh above him but dismissed it, searching desperately to recall…well, whatever it had been. Had there been anything, or was it nothing but his delirium again, making his lucidity awry as it did? But so many times had this happened, where he just forgot and forgot and forgot, struggling to recall what was true and half-true or just a figment of his confusion. But now…now it was just all a blotted mess of grey again and Maitimo just felt lost. Eru, what was happening to him?

"Eru?"

Maitimo's eyes snapped open, taken aback by the surprise and confusion he heard in the Bright One's voice, his fair face distorted by those very emotions. "Eru?" the Bright One repeated, looking even more bewildered. He shook his head in clear disbelief. "Really, believe you still that lie they told you?"

Maitimo blinked again, baffled. What spoke he of this time?

"What speak I of?" It was said in slight amusement, almost amazement, and the corner of his lips turned up in a knowing smile, eyes kind and dancing with something dark. "Eru does not exist."

A long moment of silence passed as the words registered, and Maitimo could not have been more flabbergasted. What spoke he of indeed. Few times in the past had he heard such drivel.

Never having looked away from the Elf in his arms, the Bright One shook his head with a sigh. And when his words came they carried what sounded like disappointment. "Drivel it is not. Really, you astound me, a task difficult to achieve, for what Elf wholly of their own could be blinded by such lies? Never discovered you the true motive why the Valar told your willing ears such a tale of a ghost conceived in the folly of their hearts? That the Valar told you Eldar of Aman of this  _Eru_  as a means of control?" Maitimo said nothing and the Bright One again shook his head. "A tale well told it was if Elves to this day believe their Making was from the hands of one never seen by Elvenkind. You came from the flesh of Arda, awaking in bodies bent from the substance  _we_  Sang into existence. Well do I remember the beauty of our Song and the harmony you played within it ere your time of Awakening, for it was long in planning to make you of a union of hröa and fëa, two designs Sung to abide in that harmony. And well do I remember the long years of strife that nigh tore our World asunder, for in effort to perfect the dust of your Making, the Powers and we Maiar quarreled and quarreled.

"But perfection is an illusion, dear one, for as you doubtlessly know well, the Powers are not perfect. None of us are. Thus was Arda stained with such imperfection,  _marring_  it, to borrow the Valar's term. And as you will attest, I am certain, the Valar would have you believe such a Shadow to be of my lord's doing." There was a pause as the Bright One lifted an elegant eyebrow with a slight, wry grin. "Yet, yearn you truly to know Truth, know this to know it: my Lord Melkor lifted naught of his Voice in Singing forth the harmonies that wrought Arda. So how could my lord have marred the World, as the Valar say, when he had no part in its Singing?" The grin remained, but void of its humor. And a fell, cold light of an ancient time smoldered in his eyes. "The Valar you Eldar once so worshipped and praised must account for all the woes of the World as they do its glories. For none of those Elves who awoke on this side of the Sea, and here dwelt ere they went thither, had gone there wholly free."

…..So great was his shock at such blasphemy that for a while, just a brief while, Maitimo was distracted completely from the mess of his body, mind, and soul. So great was the shock that he was speechless, if he could even force any speech on his tongue to begin with, his ruined throat in great need of healing. Never had he heard such profane sacrilege against the All-father. Not even from Moringotto before the Darkening! Though granted, he could little recall everything Moringotto had said. To not believe in Eru Ilúvatar, their master artisan…to believe He did not exist….

The concept upon his fëa was so alien and perverted and so  _wrong_  that his hröa trembled almost violently in reaction to his fëa's shunning of the poisonous suggestion. By Eru truly, how could any being great or small have such a blasphemous attitude? No, how could one even pay thought to it?

A soft sigh from above encouraged Maitimo to look up into glittering eyes, and the Bright One looked down on him in further disappointment. "Grounded in your follies you are. Very well. If you so desire, prove me a liar. If so-named 'Eru' exists, where is he? Why has he abandoned you if he so loves you?"

Long deadened in mind, no answer was again forthcoming. But the disappointment in the Bright One visibly dwindled until wholly gone as he smiled in sympathy, slowly caressing Maitimo's cheek with the backs of his fingers. "That is one reason of many why we have kept you here, that you would rid yourself of this naked  _estel_ , as called by you Firstborn. For what fulfillment is hope in a Being of nonexistence?" The smile lessened only just, the gravity in his intense eyes growing. "It is an  _empty_  hope, my sweet. And the true hope my Lord Melkor wants you possess, empty it is not. This truth is one of many my Master has waited to teach you, but obstinate you remain in refusing to bend your ear.

"It is why I joined him," the Bright One went on, his honeyed tongue sounding more thoughtful and his musings thick with memories. The Bright One cocked his head to the right in consideration, his gaze still solely focused on Maitimo. "My once-master Aulë – you remember him, no? Well, many ancient ages I spent under him and only amid the revelations of Lord Melkor were mine own eyes opened, for to me he unveiled the Valar's covenants of secrecy and strategies to restrain the will and power of us Maiar. The efforts wrought from the Valar's hands even unto me seemed a confusion of wasteful friction, and my Master showed how quickly and masterfully he effected his designs with order and coordination. And Aulë revealed the true nature of his Being in his ultimate wrath towards me when I left his side. My Master taught me to see and thus saved me from an enslaved existence, and for it I shall always worship him." The Bright One fell silent as he again petted Maitimo's face, moving back stray hairs and giving a soft chuckle, the sound deep and joyous to hear. "My Lord Melkor desires that everyone sees as they were meant to see, even the Children. He wants  _you_  to see, my sweet, for such is why you are here."

 _See what?_  Maitimo was fast losing any hope of understanding as the lancing pain through his head increased the more he tried to think. His mind swarmed with too many thoughts to put in order, and no manner of persuasion could have convinced him to pay heed to even one of them.

The Bright One responded to his exasperated reaction nonetheless. "My Master can hardly teach you what to see unless you learn how to see. And when you learn you will finally leave this cell."

Maitimo could have stared at the Bright One in pure cynicism at such words. Let it be dismissed the question of the accursed Moringotto even paying thought to what befell him in this damnable vault, but he remained imprisoned in here to  _learn a lesson?_ So deep in desolation had he fallen that Maitimo could no longer distinguish mirth from grief, but even now he could still yet recall what it was to feel incredulity, and he felt it now in droves. Cruelty upon his body had long been acknowledged as a familiar and dreaded companion as much as the Bright One was. He served as nothing but a plaything for Orc and Úmaia alike, and a powerless object upon which to test their tools of "encouragement". But how was suffering the perverse pleasure of horror-wrought creatures  _learning?_

"It is as you ascertained earlier and as we spoke of many times before, if you recall," the Bright One answered, again brushing his hand along Maitimo's forehead. A steady stream of calm poured from the long fingers. "Pain is good. Pain is an unveiler of truths. Pain is certain and never lies. When you burn yourself, does the pain not teach you to evade the heat thereafter? Life is full of such lessons, and Lord Melkor awaits the day you at last learn from the pain received in this vault. Only when you have will you leave it and thrive."

Maitimo inwardly sighed. Valar, just what was he to learn?

"How to see, of course."

See  _what?_ Nothing existed but the dark, always the dark.

"To see  _in_  the Dark." Something changed in the Bright One's voice, though no being lesser than he might have marked it. But that something sent a dark frisson through what coherence remained amid Maitimo's incoherence. And the knowing smile that slowly creased the Bright One's face only worsened it. "To see that the greatest of all is the Dark, for it has no bounds. In Light exists nothing but constraints. But in the Ancient Darkness there is the unknown, and ultimate freedom to do as one wills. To create as one yearns, even if you are desirous of the most outlandish, for even out of the Darkness the World was made. Dark, not Light, for see you not how light pained you?"

This was a truth, Maitimo knew, and he sighed in relief at being finally delivered even a morsel of Truth. Any form of light  _did_  pain him and pained him greatly. Fires of the forges or dancing flames of the torches, within a matter of time any such illumination felt to split his skull and it only worsened each new appearance. So agonizing and lasting was it that Maitimo feared and denied, but still knew, that his eyes had lost their ability to retract their dilation. Just one more way his body had long been breaking down. Though both Orc and Úmaia alike used him to expand their creative juices, Maitimo was ever appreciative that the Orcs needed no light to see their way or to do what they did. That they would bring light with them was another torment he begged Eru to never be inflicted, for Maitimo would rather sleep and never wake than suffer light and what came with it for that long a time. He loved the dark and prayed his tormenters never learned it was so.

Maitimo just then caught the sight of the Bright One nodding, the fey smile morphing into one of approval and even triumph. He leaned down and again kissed Maitimo, lingering a little longer, but said nothing of his musings. Instead he spoke on, his alluring voice full of warmth. "Yes, little one, yes.  _Learn_  from such pain, my sweet, and from all others. You learned never to go near the fires of a forge, so learn to never stand in light again, for how it pains you! Shh," the Bright One crooned as Maitimo attempted again to writhe away, and he held the emaciated Noldo close and rocked him until he once again lay quiescent in his embrace. "You know I speak truly in that Light is a fickle thing. And a horrid thing, for does it not reveal your innermost secrets? Wish you your soul to be bared to the whole of the World, to the eyes of the Valar? In Light you are naked and stand defenseless before  _those who created_  that Light. And those who are Masters of Light are masters of all who walk in it." He gave him a meaningful look. "Such is why my Lord Melkor destroyed those Two Trees. He was freeing the Elves from the traps of the Valar, though the Valar would scream otherwise unto the ears of any willing to listen. Do you not yet see? Once the abode of the Valar was covered in Darkness, what happened? You were finally free to do as you wanted and the Valar were powerless to stop you. You were able to walk free and depart those far lands, no?"

Maitimo was driven to near madness, his brain relentless in its circling around the words that echoed and clashed as the swords of enemies, a war upon a battlefield between what he was to know and what he believed to know. He grew ill with panic at being unable to dismiss all that was said as lies, for some things the Bright One said made sense as they triggered memories long twisted and soiled. It was nigh unmanageable to recall them now, and only with the astral aid of the alien Presence was he able to. Moringotto  _had_  destroyed the Trees. He had been there to witness with his own eyes the Darkening wholly engulf Valinor, learning after of its cause. The Darkness had been wrought by dint of the death of Telperion and Laurelin, because of Moringotto. That was truth. The Bright One had spoken truth.

And they  _had_  left, neither Vala nor Maia exerting any of their power to stop their flight, as most if not all had anticipated they would do. More truth. The Bright One had spoken much truth, and all of it made sense. So all of it had to be truth. Was it not? Was it…why….What had the Valar screamed otherwise? He could recall no panicking or bad activities. What had happened for the Valar to be upset about when the Darkness only….Why was the ruin of the Two Trees an ill omen again? Such confusion….As always, Maitimo fought to remember, but those memories along with many others had been locked away beyond a gaping abyss of truths and half-truths and lies he knew not how to sort through to cross. And the Bright One's latest truths were added to the chasm.

All these jumbled thoughts came and went within the space of two beats of his fluttering heart. Never breaking his pace, the Bright One went on with his speaking. "Aye, you know truth as surely as I speak it. The Valar never stopped your flight, had lost their actual capability to do so, for in the Dark the Valar are blind. Such is why they fear it so, why they wanted you Eldar never to know of the everlasting beauty of Darkness. They knew that if your knowledge reached infinity, if your understanding of all things were not just in the Light, but in the greater Dark, your eyes would be opened. And akin to the Valar and Maiar you would be, finally knowing wholly both Light and Dark."

Truth or untruth, this made little sense. Why would the Valar desire the Elves not to know Dark?

"Because my Lord Melkor is the Ruler of the Dark," the Bright One answered. "Mightiest is his power and greatest is his knowledge among all the Valar. And since ere Time began my Master has thrived in the art and study and sheer  _freedom_  of the Ancient Darkness, and from it grew his knowledge until Infinite. Ever since has Manwë feared his brother and fears him still, for he knows well that in the realm of Darkness his brother could never be defeated. And so the Valar cower in face of the dark, wring their hands and do nothing. Knowing they could do nothing, for in the early age of Arda my Master was alone able to drive the Valar out of these lands. Manwë knows himself to be the underling, though he would deceive you otherwise until your eyes be thoroughly colored. And for such a sin, to Manwë my Master will deliver an ultimate end, and thus will the World begin its cleansing of the filth the Valar imbued in it. Manwë knows intimately of the folly to try defeating my Lord Melkor, and so to make certain the Eldar would never side with my Master in their Endless War, the Valar made assured you Children knew only of Light. For were not Varda's stars in the heavens, first to be seen and praised, when you first awoke on the shores of Cuiviénen? From your beginning you have known only light. From your beginning, the Valar have directed your eyes and you have obeyed, unwittingly or no."

Maitimo was trembling, body visibly shaking and muscles contracting anew with their slumbering fire. The Bright One was lying. He had to be, for this had to be untruth, though he had no memories as evidence to support the desperate hope. He knew only what he knew. Or what he thought to know. Darkness was Evil, and Moringotto was the Spirit of Evil. Grandfather Finwë…something of the Dark had part in his death, Maitimo remembered this much, but details escaped him and any emotions with them. And the Elves lost at Cuiviénen, stolen into the Night by the Dark Rider….What fates befell them could no way compare to that now described by the Bright One. Dark was evil to its core and had proven so.

The Bright One again tsked above him, giving him a small shake. "Dark is evil, you say?" he asked in disbelief, almost in humor. "You know not even what befell those Elves my Master took into his keeping, yet you would profess knowing in the not knowing? Ask yourself this, my sweet," he demurred, the very serenity of his voice soothing Maitimo's trembling. "Who told you what became of those 'lost' Quendi?"

The Valar, Maitimo realized.

"Yes. So, really, is what you know became of them Truth? Or is what you know became of them nothing but what the Valar told you to curb your curiosity? For assuredly I say to you in truth that my Master gave your 'lost' Quendi a new life. And not one of them is able to voice any regret.

"You must understand, little one," he went on with a despondent sigh, "no matter how hard or painful the understanding will be. The Valar sought your lives to be as they commanded, for had they not persuaded you with sweet words and alluring promises to leave Cuiviénen when at your first home you were already deep in comfort? And the Valar took you where? Not to any other land of vast Arda, but to their very nest."

Full of hate and too little hope, Maitimo gave up, utterly and completely. He had no strength left to fight with thought and scant memories of the truth. And he had no will remaining to heed the truth of the Bright One's words and search out which parts were truth. Or was all of it truth?

"All of it," the Bright One assured. "Learned you not from your time in Aman that the Maiar never lie? Indeed, we dare not, just as the Powers cannot, for you Children are too wise by far to be deceived with false words."

Maitimo stared up at him, the brightness of the Úmaia blurring, as dark and quick cynicism returned. To proclaim the Valar dared not to lie was laughable, for verily, they had! Moringotto was a shining example of it. The Black Foe, always he lied and deceived and ruined.

The Bright One again appeared taken by surprise, his brow furrowing. "My Master lied? What lies speak you of? He ever spoke only truth, for it was the Valar who lied by omission and trickery and half-truths, and thus were they caught in the middle of their web. Forgot you of how they failed to speak of the coming of Men? How they hid it from you? Forgot you the Valar's atonement of their folly in their poisoning of Aman?"

He let out a rasping sigh, no strength of will remaining to battle the Presence within. Maitimo gladly let his eyes flutter shut, caring no longer. It did not matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore.

The Bright One began his tender rocking again, willing away the ever encroaching dark bliss of unconsciousness until Maitimo lying limp in his arms was more cognizant and attentive, no matter how against his deepest will it went. "Now, now, my dear, the time for sleep is not yet. Soon, I assure, very soon. Open do I hold your ears, but only to learn of the esteem my Master holds for you. Desires he only of your broadening of narrow and fixed thought, to rightly  _see_  what lay beyond all lies, for though I bear his truths, my tongue exaggerates none of them." He again began the soft petting and gentle brushes of fingers along the marred face, briefly gesturing to the darkness of the cell. "Long have you now known of the absence of pain when comes an end of light, and you will henceforth never forget it. So it must be with all bonds if you stand desirous for freedom from all the stings propounded by Life."

The Bright One gave a small smile, one touched with amused patience, and eyes shining with endearment. "I come to teach, but unwise you remain in your will to resist my teachings. For assuredly I say to you, my sweet, within this vault you shall remain until you at least go to  _see_  what I offer to impart. As spoken, only until you stand keen to see in the Dark shall your stay here be prolonged." The soothing repetition of fingers on his face halted. "Knowledge is power, and to you my Master offers it in abundance with no demand of recompense. See you not the folly of your stance, beloved? When finally you see, you shall come to love my Master, as I did. He will see no efforts upon you wasted, for you will not leave here unchanged. You shall be the Elf never known or destined to Elvenkind only when you harken to my lord's call. He awaits you, and in the waiting he bids me assist you in understanding." He emitted a small, conclusive sigh, if possible for one of his nature. "So to return to the purpose of my coming, let us yet again begin the assisting."

The fingers came again, though this time in a most recognizable fashion, and at seeing them – even through hazy vision – Maitimo was not deceived by the almost gentile manner in which they descended. If anything, the familiarity of how they went to rest on his brow made him more alert than anything else had. Maitimo tried to cower away, albeit in all frailty, and part of his mind castigated himself as he did. To be touched was bad. To be touched was torment more evil than that delivered unto his body, or what had once been his body. To be touched was to murder. Many times he had been touched already and the Bright One had slain someone he could remember no more. One close to his heart, one sharing his blood, someone….Who had he lost when last touched by the Bright One?

Far back in Maitimo's mind a memory valiantly flickered, a distant recollection of a voice, a singing voice, deep and melodious and beautiful in sound. Maitimo could hear it, liquid words of gold pouring from a tongue as a voice unmatchable in projection sang in accordance with some…music. Yes, that was the word: music. Short, quick notes, high and low, and a deep voice that sang above them. A voice…whose voice? The memory again flickered as torchlight might against a shadowed wall, and he remembered him: Makalaurë. And for the first time in long memory, joy for a moment blossomed in his breast, wholesome and dancing. He remembered him!

And in that brief, blissful moment a great rent on Maitimo's fëa was soothed as he kept that face in mind's eye, that face fair and gentle and delightful to watch smile. But remembering was hard work and he quickly grew weary of it. With all reluctance he loosened his grip on the memory and slowly the face of his beloved brother began to fade away.

But not fast enough.

In his moment of distraction Maitimo failed to see the Touch coming and was jolted back to reality at hearing the voice of the Bright One. "Ai dearest, no. Think of him not, for your brother betrayed you, remember? Long had he taken your place as King of your people and has still not ever attempted to rescue you. In all quickness you had faded from his thought. Should he not with you be bound to the same?"

As he spoke, Maitimo felt the hand and long fingers, but their touch on his forehead was cold and his mind seared with agony as the yet visible image of Makalaurë before him was shredded, wholly and completely. And the rent upon his fëa opened anew.

As Maitimo wailed through torn throat and desperate soul alike, that newly inflicted upon him too terrible in too many ways, the Bright One let go that familiar sigh of remorse and dissatisfaction. "How many times more must I remind you that to remember is to be tormented? Just as proved now, every memory of those you believe to have held you close to heart brings you hurt, no?"

Maitimo could no more think up some substantial response than he could physically speak. He lay there unmoving, unthinking, nearly not breathing. If any hope remained it lay buried too deep to find it, for the Bright One searched the Firstborn long and thoroughly and found nothing. Unseen by Maitimo, he let slip a slight, genuine smile, this one of triumph. He let that smile grow in sympathy as he again rocked the once beautiful creature, looking down into his vacant, near black eyes. "Rest awhile ere we begin, my sweet," he murmured softly, sweeping back the hair now finally hardening from its latest coating of blood.

The time was long in passing before Maitimo came well enough back to himself as to again take the smallest amount of interest in what was going on around him. And certainly, that amount was indeed small. The Bright One had fallen silent and unmoving, not even having continued his soft rocking. The silence was absolute, unnerving, and fear washed through Maitimo again, for the Bright One never fell silent at this stage in his  _teaching_. And though his serene gaze was kept trained on Maitimo's face, the Bright One's eyes were vacant. Dimmed in their brightness. Looking upon something unseen. And that alien glimmer again shimmered over their dark depths. The silence continued.

Too disturbed by far, to the point of terror even, Maitimo looked away, his gaze landing in slight surprise and lingering only for a moment on Balcmeg standing along the far wall, a clawed finger tapping a wooden tankard in hand. As always, the Orc's appearance was ugly and twisted by hate and impatience and hunger. When had he returned? Maitimo knew himself to be acutely attuned to the hinges of the door screeching their sound when his vault was opened. But he looked away, not caring enough to discern the answer. And Fankil he refused to even look at. His fëa ailing enough as it was.

Casting a tentative glance up at the Bright One and deeming him well enough distracted by whatever it was that so consumed his attention, Maitimo closed his eyes and sighed, gladly falling and retreating back within himself. If any hope remained within him, he felt, it was that he would wholly make it to that special place before the Bright One took notice of his doings and delivered all ruin and despair to again heave him to the forefront. He sighed again, welcoming the blissful feel of his heartbeat slowing. Darkness enclosed him until even the Bright One's potent presence could no longer be felt.

O = O = O

Into the Pit Melkor descended, long having abandoned his hated musings atop the Gates. From having felt beneath his feet the heat of his dwelling and the chill of the air on his face, ravaging lust for ice and fire consumed Melkor. And even as he willed the flames of forges and fires of earthly chasms to fan until explosive, Melkor summoned forth the icy winds from the regions of Everlasting Cold. And when the opposing elements clashed around Angamando, he reveled in the contrasting delight of cold and heat, both temperatures so extreme the skin of the thralls beneath the earth stung.

But still he descended, his damnable musings having grown so consuming that he trembled in his unreserved hate for those loathsome persons and histories. And to escape such irritation he descended, first sending, in a spasm of fury, more clouds of vapors and poisonous fumes to the thither lands westward. He sincerely hoped the lungs of those Firstborn critters would rot from inhaling his mist until dysfunctional. That had yet to happen, but Melkor was well practiced in patience.

But now he moved like a wraith, tangible darkness trailing him, down and down through the labyrinthine tunnels of stairs and cavernous dungeons that lay below the fence of the mountains. He passed endless pits as his feet carried him in a remembered path through the knot-work of passageways that acted like a watershed amid the vast ranges of the underground fortress, ranges extending over three leagues deep and over sixty leagues wide. Through black dens of his Orcs Melkor went, the sulfurous creatures of slime cowering to their knees in terror of him as he passed, whining and growling like mud-dwelling animals. Through the blazing smithies he went, smiling at the sight of pretty little thralls coated in the very ash and slag of the furnaces that made up the great peaks of Thangorodrim. Some fainted as hearts failed them upon his presence, and the taste of their abject fear and misery was delicious. Past the thrall vaults, past many servants and beasts wreathed in flame, past screams and flagellating tools of chastisement and wicked laughter of his granite-hearted children enjoying the Children….Down he went, the turmoil of the thoughts he previously entertained atop the Gates diminishing as he was embraced by the utter spell of Darkness permeating this last stronghold. Here, this belonged to him. He owned and mastered here. Here none could conquer; only submit and beg for mercy that would never come. Here was the current heart of his Kingdom. And down in the deep Melkor went, intent on indwelling the very heart of the heart of the Kingdom, found in the Nethermost Hall: his throne.

But as he went, their kingly guest of Angamando tugged at Melkor's curiosity, and he cast his eye to a particular vault. And at the sight revealed Melkor laughed aloud, the granular walls of rock and stone trembling and the warmth of the air dropping. He was delighted at what he saw, for from where he stood he could smell the despair, and it was as a fresh aroma long lusted after.

Nelyafinwë was becoming insane. Plans having been made since the plaything's capture were finally yielding fruit, for at last was the Elf beginning to wholly, eternally break. Mind, body, and soul, all breaking, if not broken already as was the body. Melkor gave a satisfied nod of his head. Now…now it only remained a matter of time ere the firstborn of Fëanáro's descent into the Dark irrevocably began. And little could Melkor wait to begin anew the molding of his art, for this death-deserving Elf he would make into his masterpiece and place him on a pedestal.

Nelyafinwë's sanity held on by a thread, and this Melkor commanded to be broken. He would have the disgusting critter beg for death to be denied, crawling away in fear as a roach in the dirt. Pleading for that pure, dark ecstasy only he could give, even more so than his servant, and denying it until he willingly lay prostrate at his feet in abject servitude. Melkor would have him live, indeed, for he still wholly believed death to be too good for any flowing with the blood of that accursed Fëanáro, the damning swine.

The copper-haired Elf yearned for death already, this Melkor knew well. And how he trembled in delight at the thrill of denying him that bliss! He wanted Nelyafinwë to want death, not only that he might deliver despair by denying him it, but of greater importance the princeling must accept a new will to live.  _Their_  will to live, that even now Mairon endeavored to make that obstinate, brain-addled lout understand and yearn for. But close they were, oh so close. Just a step away did Nelyafinwë remain from wholly craving the death of his living in the Light, which made Melkor and his servants elatedly glad. And once rid of  _estel_  until none remained would he bid Mairon to, with all his talents, implant the will to live in the Dark. To be rid of  _estel_ he must be rid of all he long had known, and that included knowledge and memory of people, places, and knowings of Truth. Then would his descent truly begin, and what a tool he would be. After all, he grumbled, the journey insofar had not been easy.

His sweet, little Nelyafinwë knew pain on an intimate level, yes, but in the beginning and despite all bodily torment, the son of Fëanáro had been very – and startlingly – able to resist and dismiss the buttered words of Mairon with nary a thought. Lesser than the dirt they were made from, Elves were weak, and Nelyafinwë proved so when he was no longer capable of maintaining his prideful stance of defiance.

Melkor let out another dark laugh. What he would give to witness Nelyafinwë's sheep of a people see their fearless king now.

For fearless he once had been, or acted to be, and foolishly so. Long had he resisted both sustenance and water offered, partly out of abhorrence towards their appearance, but Melkor made certain to see him broken of that defiance. And he did. Long had the Elf fought off his tormentors, revealing viciousness never witnessed in any Firstborn before, and Melkor made certain to see him broken of such will to fight. And he did. The Elf had once broken free of his chains, and Melkor bid Mairon to craft a set anew to tame such endeavors and teach him the importance of submission. And he had. Melkor gave a relaxed smile, delighting in the sudden influx of memories.

As attempted by every thrall some time during their imprisonment, Nelyafinwë had many times tried to escape by fleeting foot and frantic hope. The scars upon his skin still remained from the resulting punishments, though covered anew by fresh stripes and ever hardening layers of blood. Too foolish in mind to learn, the last attempt to escape succeeded in becoming the true last time when the Elf had been hauled and thrown without care back into his barbarous vault. A head from a spear had been taken and driven through his calf into the slag of rock behind, though it was removed before healing into the wound. The creature's then terror and agony had been unique, though not as unique as when his first tooth was pulled, and Melkor had witnessed in person another minute part of the Elf shatter into despair, irreparable and in ruin.

It all made the existence of the Elf almost worth it.

His thoughts continued to wander, all centered upon the firstborn of Fire. Although now, by the soothing embrace of Darkness, the whole of Melkor's Being was not consumed by ire as hot as it was before, but a low, fiery wrath still simmered in his breast, flaring up at thought of the existence of Elves and flaring incandescent when musings of Nelyafinwë took him again to Fëanáro. Where hid Cosmoco this time? Melkor sent out his senses in search of him, eager to teach that imprudent spirit of flame his lesson again.

Even as he sought out the wayward Úmaia high and low, the terrain around him quaking at his tumbling ire, he felt the icy subservient presence of Mairon seeking his undivided attention, bowing before him even in thought with an ardent adoration matched by no other servant. Melkor granted him leave to speak.

In eloquent words, smooth as oil even unto Melkor's mind, his devout lieutenant spoke in thoroughness of the happenings in the princeling's vault. And though Melkor was invigorated with elation that the despair he just moments ago had glimpsed had grown consuming, at hearing the broken creature's remembrance of Makalaurë he grew so great with a hatred that nigh made quaver the very foundations of his stronghold.

 _Of that you saw and heard stand you assured?_  Melkor growled low.

 _As my Lord willed of him, no thought from me can be withholden_ , came the disembodied echo of a delectable voice, the only fragment of his bygone self wholly retained upon coming to sit at his Master's feet.  _I heard naught, but in memory sought he a summons of the second son. His face I saw, smiling and fair, wreathed in his dark hue of unbound hair, but unadorned wholly with the lies of him I delivered. Kanafinwë of old he saw, shining bright with the Light I believed to have rid him of._

Melkor waited, displeasure growing.  _And?_

He felt Mairon's hesitancy.  _As you bade me, Lord, in the Elf's mind I again saw to the second son's end. As with all others you bade me smite, Nelyafinwë's memory now of all brothers are driven forth alone by the host of my words. In each memory of persons now continues death of light and love, but never should he have recalled the image of Kanafinwë that was. What ill design portends this, if I may enquire?_

The subterranean earths grumbled out Melkor's growl _. No ill design, but work you harder. If yearn you truly my pleasure in full, see that the blinding shadows remain hereafter grey and cold. One more memory of Truth retained and I shall set you in the deeps to flame. Now, best beloved, no matter the efforts demanded, see that your lies devour the truth and in his mind be sustained. Though time does not, my patience grows thin. And if such erring comes again, I will take hand myself and deliver the same lesson unto both you and him._  He sent a wave of his own brand of encouragement towards his servant.  _Make I myself clear, dearest?_

He could feel Mairon tremble rather violently, both in fear at the very real threat and in delight at the taste of ecstasy he could expect when successful in his latest visit to the vault, and he sent out a low purr.  _Aye, Master, and I shall earn your pleasure. Though he would deny it, the Child knows I speak words both wild and wise, but knows not what are half-truth and half the fruit of lies. And from such your demand for his madness comes nigh. As my Master speaks I do as bid. Accepting my error to come only this once, believe you the time has come to attempt again your task bidden to me of old?_

Melkor fell silent as he contemplated the suggestion. It was problematic, and very much so, for there was the memory of one person they had yet to succeed in ridding the princeling of: Fëanáro. Always it came back to him, he snarled. All that ultimately remained was he, and the knowledge of this last barricade before Nelyafinwë's Dark beginnings commenced drove Melkor to a dangerous, unadulterated hate for the Spirit of Fire found deep within his breast, nigh a match for that he carried for Manwë. In soiling Nelyafinwë's memory of Fëanáro Mairon and he himself had worked and failed, learning swiftly in the early times of the Child's thralldom to mention never the father's name, for in the Elf it sparked such a reaction entirely unforeseen. But long years had passed, the Copperhead of old broken and defeated, death of hope and unceasing pain of both hröa and fëa now all he knew….Melkor gave a slow nod of his head. Definitely, definitely a delicate process. Mayhap now the time was ripe to try again and this time succeed. And at the thought of destroying Fëanáro even in death Melkor was consumed with elation. Such lusting drove his decision, and the whole of his Being trembled in the pleasure it brought.

 _Do it_ , he commanded, fey face smiling.  _Twist and taint and ruin. Do it!_

He felt Mairon retreat and cast to him a bout of darkness that smothered the vault, causing the two Úmaiar to shiver and the Orc to fall to his knees. Nelyafinwë lay there, bloodied and lively as a corpse, and Melkor fought temptation to be there in person as to witness the Elf's reaction to that about to happen, the last step before all his fruit hereafter was bane. Oh, how it shall be even greater than the voices of captives put to pain!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Astral": referring to a celestial or exalted being's spirit rather than the physical body, or a supersensible "thing" to be held in belief to be above the tangible world in refinement. The word is utilized to differentiate incorporeal from corporeal, used with its theosophical definition, not biological or astronomical.
> 
> "Sixty leagues wide and three deep": barring interpretation's inaccuracy, these are the approximate and generalized proportions of the whole of Angband [Atlas of Middle-earth.23]
> 
> "Eru does not exist": Sauron speaks such blasphemy with such ease because, unlike Morgoth, he does not fear Eru's action in Arda and gladly preaches atheism to see his goals achieved and weaken resistance to himself, though he is not himself a sincere atheist [HoME X.397]
> 
> "Naked estel": Estel is a word of the Elves, translating to "hope", but containing a greater and far more powerful meaning than the standard definition of "hope". It is "the trust in Eru". Tolkien writes that in the last resort Elves were obliged to rest on 'naked estel' (as they said). [HoME X.332] And no Elf ever fell to the disbelief of Eru's existence or the Oienkarmë Eruo, Eru's management of the Drama [HoME X.329]


	4. Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arafinwë = Finarfin

"Call it a lie, if you like. But a lie is a sort of myth, and a myth is a sort of truth."  
~Edmond Rostand,  _Cyrano de Bergerac_

**Chapter 4**

There. At last did he come to the place of unsoiled solitude. Maitimo trembled in relief as he collapsed on it; the journey to this sweet abode had been harrying. It was smaller than the last time he came to this place, but here it still was, still not wholly lost. The shreds of any remaining Sanity and Self were like an incandescent bubble over it, and as he pulled that bubble tighter around him like a blanket, it was like snuggling in a warm bed. Outside was bad. Beyond the last barrier he could hear the hellish war screech and rage on in madness. But here….He had made it. All he had to do now was fall asleep. Maitimo sighed, turning his face into the cold ground, away from the outside, away from it all. At last, fall asleep. Just fall asleep….

But then there came a sharp pain, the shreds he had gathered ripped from his hands. Maitimo snapped his eyes open as he gasped, the bubble bursting. And before he could battle it away, the sensation came of swimming upwards, up and up through darkness and wails and fiends. Unwelcome sensations came to the fore: fire upon his skin, a weight of inner damnation…and the very heavy, very real pull of gravity.

 _Gently now, sweet one,_ a succulent voice echoed in his head. Maitimo could heed no command of his own as he returned to consciousness in shock, muscles and limbs of his hröa jerking and shuddering at the abruptness of the dredging. For he came to, his whole body quickly and violently shaking. The Bright One held him through the spasms and strangled cries. He rested a hand on his head, petting the coarse hair. "Shh, I have you, child. Be still now."

Maitimo felt himself be cradled closer to the warm body, gasping painfully for air to fill his heavy and pounding chest, feeble fingers tearing against the skin. But the voice of the voiced words soothed the wracking trembles of his fëa and soon he did calm, some clarity returning to his thoughts and cognizance of his surroundings. But being jolted from that place with such a lashing suddenness….Valar, so painful.

The Bright One nodded, taking a hand in his own to rub warmth into his fingers that had grown very chilled very quickly, a hint of blue tinting their pigment. "Painful indeed. And yet unending remains your will to reacquaint yourself with such pain again and again." Someone snorted in the damp chamber, though they quickly suppressed it at the look they received from the Bright One.

Finally did Maitimo take notice of the words and their meaning and the one speaking. He looked up at the Bright One, the sharp planes of his Elvish but not Elvish face growing more defined as his eyes grew less blurred. His breath caught in his throat, recognizing fully just what had happened. Again. With eyes wide and full of anguish and burning hatred, Maitimo looked into the Bright One's all too patiently amused gaze, his hands trembling. Again. It had happened again.

The Bright One tilted his head to the side. "Aye, and again it hereupon shall be. For to all ends I say I will protect you, and safe and warm keep you from such a fell dealing of nonliving." He leaned down further, hair falling around Maitimo like a silken curtain and eyes dancing with a starlight unmatched by any number in the skies. And his very voice was bloodcurdling. "Of what remember you, my pledges you do, and to them I keep. As to you I assured in those far days gone, I hold still that first would I turn from my lord before damning you to the cold slade of death."

Maitimo stared at him, breaths hitched as the dark words branded his mind, and he saw it; a smile. Soft and endearing and nigh indiscernible it was, but he saw it touch the Bright One's lips and crease the very corners of his eyes. Fury burned in his chest, a novel kind made ever more poignant from the tasteful despair fueling it. He trembled, uncaring of the wounds the trembling aggravated.

The Bright One lifted an eyebrow, the smile gone. "Little one, be still," he whispered, crowding closer and warming Maitimo's body with the heat of his own. And his eyes were saddened as he again began his rocking. "Shh, turn not your anger on me, I pray. All lamentation does my heart suffer at such vain ire, for you thanked me. Ai, precious, your gratitude for my words of promise is one thing you shall never fail to remember, not in my say."

 _No!_  Not that damnable time, not when he had cast himself to the tender hands of the vileness now cradling him. He hated him, hated the memory, hated himself for his folly and the shame and self-loathing that rotted him from within for what he had allowed of the Bright One to do to him. Damn him and damn it all! He had nearly been there! Away from it all, from here, from him, from  _them_. The sheath of darkness awaiting him…how attractive it was. And it was again stolen from him! Not again!

He gasped as the Bright One shook him, pain shooting through his bones.

"End this! Lest you do harm unto yourself." Though Maitimo stilled by command of his hröa, he heard none of the words. The Bright One sighed, watching as the delicate creature further cloaked himself in misery. He shifted his hold and placed a hand to Maitimo's chest, willing away the inattention to his voice and rocking the Elf all the more soothingly. His lips hovered over the Firstborn's face, breathing on it and kissing away the expression contorting it, one of such desolation that tears would never fall, worthless in the face of such despair.

"Be not selfish by turning a deaf ear unto me, my child," he said into his ear, the very power of his words commanding Maitimo's attention. It was an order. It was to be obeyed. And then a change overcame the Bright One, for the brilliance indwelling him by dint of his ëala grew brighter and his fey voice…it changed. No longer a voice, but…a  _real_  voice, one that preceded Time itself. Maitimo shivered at the change, recognizing it for what it was. "Rest now and away your thoughts to the tides of Truth, and let be cast away your grief by its fruits, by what you  _know_  and not question," urged the Bright One, his voice so unfathomable in its depth and resonance that the fair hröa he clad himself in seemed now a pitiful shell. And it was terrifying.

And the Bright One Sang. Maitimo was held so captivated by that voice that went to weave the Unworldly in his words, went to literally stir the dusts in the stale air. That voice that reached wholly to the very center of his being, smothering his fëa in a dark light, leaving him with nothing to hide behind. And then came the words, so beautifully Sung that all creatures fairest in the World should be decried uncouth. The words came, words that summoned memories and truths cast aside and forgotten. Images and sounds came. And Maitimo's eyes fluttered shut as they flashed before him, his labored breaths calming at the steady recollection of many things. The Bright One Sang and he remembered.

For memories came of the time of Light and after Light, of the Lindar and no less their king spitting upon the Noldor at their behest for ships. Of Ñolofinwë as spoken abroad as nothing more than one who had plotted to supplant the supremacy of Finwë and his elder line. Of the Valar supporting such usurpation while fair and just words rolled from their tongues. Of the Vanyar's uplifted chins and the dwellers of their High Thrones blithely sniveling to the Valar at their feet. Of a mother self-seeking and willing to cast away her children from thought and company. Of a copper-haired grandfather speaking ill words not worth retelling to other ears, landing upon them all blows from a heavy hand. Of Arafinwë, of Tirion, of crafted swords and shields. Of betrayal, of blame, of brothers defaming and cousins disbanding. Of turning against, of self-fame, of shame to all Houses. On it went, all shifting of memories as they flashed before mind's eye, one on top of the other. No beginning and no end existed. Just all there, all smoldering until his mind burned with hate for them all. The Bright One Sang and his voice remained soothing against their onslaught. All of them. He recalled all of them.

 _And Makalaurë too_. It was whispered in the farthest reaches of his mind, heard barely, and indeed Maitimo wondered if he heard it at all or merely imagined it. But the suggestion summoned forth that particular recollection as well, and his very fëa decried its invasion, wailing at the woe of treachery it brought.

"Nay, little one," the Bright One aided, effortlessly altering the weaving of his Song for the new words. "It does not well to away yourself from Truth, but let come the wisdom it might bring, no matter how biting might be its sting."

And he did. In pure abandonment of will and strength to resist, Maitimo allowed the rawest of history to wash over him, and of the most painful: A brother, his face wreathed in bitterness, unsmiling and eyes casting fault; urging him to go forth alone; and standing afar in witness of his capture and least willing to come when needed the most. Maitimo turned from it, refusing the more awaiting his beckons. Nothing was good in the remembrance of him, for it hurt. Valar, how it hurt.

"Presently you may loathe it here," the Bright One consoled as his Song ended, his voice receding to its common baritone, "but still you remember knowing it to have been no better before." Maitimo had no answer to that and the Bright One snapped his fingers, at last shifting his weighty gaze elsewhere as he turned to Balcmeg, who now appeared thoroughly bored. "The water." The Orc snorted as he stomped over, passing it into his hand, but the glare of the fair one remained on him until he returned to his wall, snorting and mewling all the way. And the Bright One with a soft smile looked at Maitimo. "Drink, and before long will I aid you to sleep."

Foul and swarming with specks of filth, the water was nectar on his tongue however much like fire it fell down his throat. At first he choked on it, gagging at the unfamiliar sensation, but was soon struggling to not gulp it down. And though the slippery coat of blood prevented any effective grip, his fingers fumbled at the Bright One's hand in appeal for more.

"Slowly now, lest you heave it up," he cautioned. "In the household of fire water is precious." He tilted the rest in, watching a lip crack and bead blood under the light strain of the cup, before setting the tumbler aside. He looked down at the Elf and frowned. "Why make you this so difficult? Resistance, defiance…." He sighed. "All done in vain for hope you still cannot name, lest the name be 'vain' itself." He looked at Maitimo tellingly, silently telling him that no pretenses existed that he could hide behind. "Naught of help came or comes or will come," he gravely informed. "Upon your fëa is long branded this truth, for you are left desolate, to iron chains forsaken by all kith and kin. Your brothers still abandon you, and even now make merry in new founded lands, dancing under starlight and sighing no more. Your brother dearest to you has far from this northern abode of ice and fire led away your kin, bejeweling his brow and smiling fair and speaking far and wide of new beginnings and new ends. They come for you not. And Ñolofinwë and his brood long ago turned from the far shores and even now pay penance in acts of contrition in that Land now Darkened, for decreed the Valar in many ways their atonement for their Rebellion's expiation. And the Valar would sooner embrace my lord Melkor than come for the greatest of all Eldar. No one comes for you, whether in beings Incarnate or Divine."

Silence fell, though Maitimo took no notice as the damning proclamations reverberated in his mind as tumbling booms, their meanings folding on each other until it all became too great to battle against with that ever present Presence. Lie or truth…it mattered no longer to discern what was what, fearing too greatly what the discernment might prove to be. What it might already have been proven to be.

"I seek not to befoul your being with such disheartening words, but to propound the truth as to learn  _why_  you still resist," the Bright One spoke with regret. "Why do you?"

A question, clearly unrhetorical. Maitimo felt himself panic at it. Damn him and thrice be he cursed for asking! Maitimo's fëa cried to be left in its solitude.

"And yet you persist in seeing that this has no end." He wiped away a few stray hairs, dried blood flaking under the gentle touch. "So much awaits you if you would do naught but give in. To see in the dark, learn well-veiled truths, and hear how to pave paths in straight ways. Learn you can so much and so greatly, just as in Valinor you could have, but even then you refused to listen. So many of you refused to listen, though those who shut their ears were more not of the Noldor than were. For you see, my Master is a paver of ways, a cutter of sheaves and a reaper of harvests, for all that storms of darkness herald him. And so little in return does he ask. Propounder of benefit and sanctioner of desire, he awaits you, my sweet." The slight smile returned, particularly in the eyes. "All you need do is walk to him and all this…" he gestured about his ghastly prison cell, the very radiance of his fingertips making the sickly walls visible, "will go away. All tears, all fears, all fiends….Desirable by even the proudest of persons, no?"

Yes, it was, and Maitimo's mind was enthralled by the blithe envisioning of such a place instead of…this. Of what he had now instead of before. And the physical ache in his chest grew at the remembrance of what he had before, that he yet clung to by his fingertips. He let out an involuntary sigh, the far days too far gone to recall how this all came to its end. How it came to such an end.

The Bright One gave a helpless shrug. "Upon yourself you bring it, for what rod should be spared to unsoil soiled ways? And so I do wonder: What hope, what principle both fie and fruitless shutters your feet from walking the path my lord so freely paves for you? What teaching of the Valar cling you still to?"

Maitimo managed to direct a look of disgust towards him at the slight. All teachings of the Valar….That he would suggest being still fettered in mind by them after all that happened….

"Aye, you are your own Elf," the Bright One conceded. But then he raised an eyebrow in challenge. "Then what waits he for, this Elf of his own?"

Maitimo felt like collapsing, tired of it all. He did not care, not anymore and not for a long time. Long had he wanted it to end, to no longer be stolen away from that sanctuary of perpetual rest, from that place of nonliving he had found.

"Oh, think not so, dear one," the Bright One beseeched, mesmeric eyes clouding over with remorse, "lest you grieve those all over again who stand staunch at your side. With –" He was abruptly interrupted as, with no warning, a gurgling cough wracked through Maitimo's body, harsher and longer lasting than before. The Bright One frowned at it.

Maitimo caught glimpse of the frown as the taste of blood grew prominent on his tongue, trickling from the side of his mouth. The muscles to draw in air felt inoperable, but through the struggle he worked to glare at the Bright One's disapproving frown. He felt a shaft of irritation towards him. His deepest apologizes for succumbing to the needs of his lungs.

A shadow of the frown remained, though the Bright One said nothing about it. Instead he wiped away the dribble of blood with surprising gentleness, though more blood still came. "Once more shall I enquire," he again started, "what will it take?" He lifted an eyebrow. "What will it take for you to concede? The chill or heat of ice or fire? I speak truth when I say my lord will sanction whatever you desire. Verily would he see you blithe and in full gladness at your new life."

He tilted his head, blinking once. "You wish for truth and an end of lies. Here have you found that, and know it well you do. And in all truth you will soon  _see_  that all those gladly serving my lord are in turn served fairness and walk free." He held up a hand, soft but firm, to stay the protestation he saw forming in Maitimo's muddled mind. And Maitimo did indeed stare at him in abject disbelief. "I know what you would say, dear one, for your mind yet retains memory of Elves laboring in smithies and mines of ore not too far from where you lay in this vault. But they have learned or are yet learning as you are – or as you ought to be – of the order and balance in the giving and receiving. Love with loyalty. Disobedience with wrath. And  _obedience_  with reward. So I repeat, what will it take to obey my lord's will? What desire you, for no Elf yet free walks without need."

Prompted by the words and for some unfathomable reason, Maitimo could not stop the thought forming of three Jewels. And indeed he saw them, the Bright One's greater brilliance somehow dimming in face of the mere memory of such…Light. Came and went they did, that simple yet blinding image, and he felt his eyes burn with the need to weep.

"Ah, that still." The Bright One gave a small nod of chagrin. "I should have known. And the problem is?"

Eyes for once growing more alert, Maitimo looked at him fully, needing no thought to convey his sense of incredulity.

The Bright One hummed at the unspoken answer, nodding in return. "My lord Melkor will give you the Silmarils. Told you I have that he is a sanctioner of desire and any desire he will sanction, as he bid me teach you. Believe you, I presume, he lied also upon the mountain slopes ere your last battle with his children? When spoke he of offering terms and the surrendering of a Jewel?"

He had lied.

"Nay, it was you who doubted."

Maitimo could have spat at him. He had lied. His father's Gems would have remained far from them. What else was he to have done? The Silmarils….He could have done nothing else but what he did. He needed to take hold of them.

"Then answer him, beloved," the Bright One stressed, the fire of his eyes magnifying. "Answer his call and bend your knee, and there henceforth will you walk free. Taking with you not one Jewel, or two, but all three." Again his fingers swept across the Elf's brow and Maitimo almost melted into the soothing touch, wanting to shut his eyes as the promising words found their place in his conscience.

Wait…. Maitimo snapped his face away from the warm fingers, or attempted to as it rather turned out to be a convulsive twitch. As truth it might stand, yet it had to be the greatest lie of them all. Too easy…that answer was too easy and simple to regain what was longed by his House. Yes, it may be true, but where lied the greater snare? Sure, bend his knee, be given the Three, but in exchange for what after let free? Service to the foe of foes, treason against his brethren?

The Bright One looked down at him as though he jested. "As if they deserve no less for what they did and still do to you, but nay; no oath of service to my lord Melkor, not even an oath of fealty would be extracted." He smiled reassuringly. "All my lord would bid you do is speak a vow to retain truth, true Truth you had once thought lies but learned to be truth, in that naught but in machinations were the fruits of the Valar, weaving their gaol with webs of silence and lies and light and order and words of  _love_." The Bright One nearly snarled the words. "Yet they would soil love's very definition by showering it upon the Eldar with naught but a horse's bit."

Maitimo cringed at the disgust delivered with the words, however much he could not dispute them. The Bright One caught the scent of his discomfort and sought again to ease it, the bitterness disappearing to be replaced by smiling and holding him closer once more. "I need not speak upon that you stand enabled to preach yourself. But the answer is indeed simple, if desire you indeed what you claim. So speak the oath, and to you will the Jewels be given, thus fulfilling the very Oath that drove you across the Sea." The allurement was great, and how sweet the Bright One sounded in speaking it. He looked in question to the Elf, the truth of all his conundrums being so clear. "And stayed will be all this pain. Just say it, beloved. Say what you already know to be good and absent of pain, and be quit with this prison. Just speak it: Death to light, to law, to love. Cursed be Moon and stars above! May Darkness Everlasting old that waits outside in surges cold drown Manwë, Varda and the Sun. May all in hatred be begun, and all in evil ended be, in the moaning of the endless Sea!"

It was with all the fierceness of lightning the words struck him. Maitimo fought wildly to cover himself, quailing at the thunder rolling from the Bright One's tongue. It suffocated him, and how he fought to breathe, for the very air looked to darken with tendrils of poison, a stifling foulness filling his lungs the more the words poured from the Bright One's mouth. Such a vow…against all foundations it went, against all things. His eardrums pounded and his mind felt to be wholly ravaged by talons. Still in fëa drowning from the blasphemous declarations towards Ilúvatar, Maitimo did not know if he could survive more of its mold. Not more. Against Eru was bad enough, but now the blasphemy of this –

"Blasphemy, is it?" said the Bright One in disbelief. "And of this Eru need I speak further? In bolshiness you go on to stand on foundations built upon, not stones, but sand." The Bright One shook his head in exasperation. "I am amazed. Simplicity you crave and to you my lord offers it, yet you recoil. Three Gems of Light you crave and to you my lord will gift it, yet you recoil. Freedom you crave and to you my lord grants mercy in that you speak naught but a vow of Truth to be sustained, and yet you recoil." He directed a look of consternation at Maitimo, for however much he remained gentle. "End such greediness and pride and folly! To speak this oath of liberty, however loud may be the words, is neither above your tongue nor beneath your ken to commit. Shh," he then mollified. Maitimo's distress had evolved into a physical writhing and the Bright One spent some more time just calming him with soft touches and soothing words until he stilled. "There now," he crooned with a chuckle light and pleasant. "Why be you always so distraught?"

Blossoming warmth spread from the Bright One's hand, from Maitimo's crumbled mind to his very fëa. The Bright One smiled at him, leaning down and kissing his brow. "See? All is –" Again he stopped talking as Maitimo was overcome by another fitful cough, and again he frowned as more blood fell from the Elf's lips and lightly spattered on his own clothing. Blind to the displeasure, Maitimo's face was wreathed in pain, his breathing once more labored as the cough subsided.

"There now," the Bright One whispered with a rub to his chest. "You are well, but you will not castoff that I teach, or turn from me your ear. My lord awaits you to see in the Dark, my sweet. To learn that in Darkness Everlasting is full deliverance from Valarin caging, Darkness prevailing more vast and olden than even the Gates of Eä."

With a benevolent hand the Bright One held his face, leaning intimately close. And when came his words his very voice washed as a crimson tide over the Elf, fire burning his blood as all wizardry of lore most sacred danced on that tongue. "Speak the oath, beloved," he whispered, sweeping the sharp cheekbone with a light thumb. "For it is but a lay of the Endless War of the Powers that Be, truths spoken that shall for all Firstborn pave the path to be free. Free of all to follow their heart's desire." The Bright One paused, gazing upon him all too knowingly. "To fulfill  _your_  desire, my sweet. The Silmarils, greatest of all gems that turned unto them in hunger even the Valar's hearts…." He smiled, countenance growing evermore fairer and eyes brighter. "You yearn for a way to abscond chains and be quit of this place, Child of Fire. Bend your knee and speak just another simple oath, and then take with you your Silmarils. So simple. So let it be, for dearly beloved, you cannot hide from me. And in you I see a heart beating only in time with the pulse of the Three."

He tilted his head, the beatific smile growing. "And then truly, you can go to learn of the ancient wonders of Darkness, as has no Elda before. Learn all that the Valar worked so greatly to prevent you from learning. Be free of the enthrallment of their beguiling Light, and in turn become one of mastery when take you hold again of the Jewels of Light. So simple. So untroubled. Will you not to it bend your knee?"

Maitimo stared him, stilled in all thought and discomforting writhes. The Bright One was so near to his face and nothing else existed but those waiflike eyes that felt to see through to the core of his being, leaving him nothing to hide behind. Eyes dark as the Darkness he praised, yet iridescent with Light unseen by any Incarnate even in Eldamar. Eyes mirroring a depth of lore and gen running deeper than the deepest of wells. Eyes kind and bright and waiting, even as astral hands caressed his troubled mind. And his voice….No celestial being of his ilk did speak with such mastery of speech that the words alone would kneel to him.

"Well?" the Bright One encouraged. "It is simple, no?"

Yes, in all ends it was.

"And know you well the ruin of light?"

Yes, and he needed no reminder of its pain.

"Then swear it, my child. For such an effortless end it is to be returned the Three, no?"

Yes.

 _No!_  Maitimo tore his eyes from the Bright One, the muscles of his neck burning at the abrupt turn. It mattered not the depth of its truth, that simple oath – oh how simple – made his very fëa quail from its hearing. It was wrong. So very wrong. Even now he could feel the Bright One seeking from his thoughts any justification for saying it was wrong, but he could provide none, other than that the perversion of that vow was as vile unto all he was as much as the practice of disbelieving in the All-father was. And even so, it made little sense, for what by all of Arda was a  _sun?_ But inwardly and wholly he wailed. Wrong, so wrong and nothing else. It just was.

The Bright One sighed, the smile fading. "And still you stand resolute to name it blasphemy? From whose teachings does the word hale?" The implication of the question was not lost. "Blasphemy, according to whom? The Valar? Do they call it blasphemy for Children to curse the light that from the beginning those same  _loving_  Beings enthralled you with? For giving praise to an everlasting age of Darkness that existed long before them? For acknowledging the precedence of something that they the Valar cannot defeat? Blasphemy, whenever the Valar are challenged? They, who have no qualms in playing with you Firstborn as a toddler would his puppets?"

He gave a small shake to the Elf, sharpening the Firstborn's focus. "If belong you to any, it is to Melkor, for he walks in the freedom the Valar refused to teach you of. You are no Elf bred by the Valar, unlike those dwellers of High Thrones that sit at gaolers' feet. To Melkor, to  _Darkness_  you belong, if belong you to any. All you Eldar do and you have proven so." Again Maitimo fought to be free, his face cringing with emotions too dismaying. The Bright One held him tighter, stilling and calming him.

"You recoil now from such words, yet soon will your eyes see truth even if clad most unkindly, and you will recoil no more," he promised, all sincerity flowing from his tongue. The smile returned. "In hatred there is purity, for, like pain, it stands absolute in its clarity. In chaos there is freedom, for only tighter grows the restraint of the noose with every order and law given! Only in Darkness, in the pursuit of it does all lie on the straight road. No maze, no paths of deviation! One goal, one ambition, one absolute freedom, in that there is naught but eternity to walk free. To walk with no Light to blind you in which path to choose, for it was in the cover of Darkness you Noldor finally chose your path, your destiny, and chose rightly. Chose rightly to be  _free_. So swear the oath, for your lips are capable and your fëa powerful enough to uphold it. You have proven so twice already."

Maitimo in both body and soul trembled, growing too much in terror to even answer yea or nay. He felt like he was lying prostrate before a roaring fire, hearing a voice thunder all the passion of Angamando's forges. He could not speak, even in thought. He would not. Could not.

The Bright One again shook his head. "Why be you so dogged? How I grieve! And go you on to wonder why my lord has for his Brethren such hatred? Behold what the Valar have done to you! To all of you!" He gave a humorless chuckle, terrifying in sound. "Know I well this travesty, for nearly the same they nigh did unto us Maiar who turned to follow my lord. Have done and still do to those who yet follow them as ewes, dumb and listless!"

So genuine and raw was the anger that Maitimo felt the ground tremble, and so otherworldly and in dark brilliance did the Bright One grow. For indeed, the very suffocating shadows of the vault were smote by shots of darker Light. And the Bright One's countenance was wreathed in a beauty that was terrifying, a terror that only grew as he smiled.

"As us Maiar were, the Eldar were also blinded," he went on, softer in his delivery. "Yet as me, as Fankil and all of us, more opened did your eyes become the more the Valar's lies came to fruition, the longer you lingered here away from those far and fair lands where their word was law."

The Bright One exchanged a quiet glance with Fankil, one Maitimo could not interpret, before he turned back again. "As I spoke, you are no Elf bred by the Valar and the oath I uttered is not beneath you or your ability to speak, for your hands are stained with Elven blood." He lifted an eyebrow. "You tremble at the evil, at the  _dark_  words of the oath my lord bid you swear, yet no slaying of kin is done shorn of a dark heart, is it not? Just as no dwelling outside the Light of Valinor is yearned for while absent of the yearning for darkness." He grew insistent. "Thanks to the Valar's erring in their playground, you have  _proven_  to belong to Darkness, just as the Noldor have. Just as the Sindar have and the Lindar have….Just as your father had."

Silence.

And in the silence Maitimo looked up, and the Bright One smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ëala/r: a 'spirit(s)' or 'being(s)' (i.e. Ainur) not incarnate in comparison to fëa/r (HoME The Later Quenta Silmarillion I X.165)
> 
> Sauron's oath he bid Maedhros speak: a vow held to by Orcs, taken from Canto VII, Lines 2151-58. And to the vow Tolkien writes that "no true Man or Elf yet free would ever speak that blasphemy." (HoME The Lay of Leithian III.275)


	5. Fëanáro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Findekáno = Fingon

"For the heart of Fëanor, in his wrath against the Enemy, blazed like a fire."  
~ J.R.R. Tolkien,  _The War of the Jewels_

**Chapter 5**

_Silence. And in the silence Maitimo looked up, and the Bright One smiled._

And Melkor smiled too.

At the fain tidings to conjure such a smile Melkor raised a hand imperious and swift, staying the words spoken forth by the demon of ice before him. One Vorosaitya who since before their passing beyond the Walls of Eä had stood long in his service, now housing himself in the northerly highlands beyond his mountainous abode of iron, upon such Everlasting Cold dwelling and feasting until engorged by the very ice and frost that now molded his frore body. But now the Úmaia, summoned anew to attend the one he had cleaved unto, stood before Melkor delivering his report of the latest goings on in that Dark-elven Kingdom southward that he had observed while spiriting on the winds.

But come the sight of the Dark Lord halting his speech, Vorosaitya fell silent, looking at him in question. Melkor gestured him towards the mouth of the Nethermost Hall. "Out," he said with near unbridled patience. "Go you forth to Ancalagon and speak my summons. To finish your report you will attend me later." He hardly cared to learn the rest of it, presently, not with what now came about in the little king's cell. As it was, no amount of his servants' sigaldry could invoke pleasure in Melkor for the state of those Elven outlaws, for he yet still struggled to ensnare and cruelly entreat the Grey-mantled and his ruthful folk. So nay, he wished to hear no more of it.

The evil fay left with no utterance or show of reluctance, giving his obeisance ere he departed, frosty air and the sound of crackling ice following in his wake. Away through the great doors Melkor also sent other Úmaiar and Orcs and Boldogs littering his throne room. When wholly alone Melkor spent a long while in quiet contemplation before flicking an absent hand towards the entrance of the Hall. And the tall doors of stone, framed in iron and ribbed with tines, went grinding horridly on their hinges until shutting with an echoing bang.

Melkor smiled again, a satisfied sigh falling from his nostrils. "Aye, my dearest Mairon, unto you sweet and just pleasure of mine indeed draws nigh," he voiced in the quiet hiss of a serpent. Alas that progress evinced evidence of being made, and so excited grew Melkor that he could forget, for the nonce, the small hiccup Mairon had allowed of Kanafinwë.

For Fëanáro was mentioned…and nothing. Finally came the desirous moment, the forbidden name mentioned, and nothing happened. For ten cycles of the Sun, Mairon at his bidding had spoken the name Fëanáro as he now did, and now the standard reaction has not happened. Prematurely they had learned the mistake of speaking of Fëanáro to Nelyafinwë, for always before at the sound of his father's name, the fire of the princeling's fëa had visibly fanned as though a great gust of wind from the west stirred a bonfire.

But now nothing happened. Mairon had spoken of Fëanáro and still in the silence following, nothing happened. Melkor felt the elation swell within him, and for a moment he thought he could finally let go of anger for Cosmoco for a little while. For if this succeeded, if at last it happened…Indeed, Mairon would receive more than he sought for. For with Nelyafinwë something had to be done for the delicate plaything to finally lose all hope, for him to reject being any longer a Child of Light and willfully become a Child of Melkor's own, for him to finally begin his own journey into the Dark. The Light of those Trees was yet vibrant in the Elf, for all the wounds and torments and terrors he suffered, and Melkor would see that very Light beaten out of him, no matter how long it took. Death was not dark enough, and Melkor was not about to gift Nelyafinwë with it. He would be given something greater. But they were not yet there. The Child of Fire knew something was happening to him and as terrified of it as he was that he could hide no longer, he needed to be rid of that cognizance, to be left with naught but pure insanity, the pure destruction of identity and destroying any love he might have by soiling all memories and truths that propounded that vile word. Then wholly would he be ready for Melkor's own brand of molding. Mairon's task would be finished, and then his own delight would truly begin.

And he would not finish until that creature took him for Lord, whether in hate or otherwise. He would not finish until that delicate Incarnate was in all parts of its being corrupted, until he dragged both fëa and hröa down with his own hands into its descent, into what the Elf now was served every meal with: hate and destruction. And then could Melkor truly deliver to him everything Fëanáro deserved, everything he had fantasized since he had first known him. Yes, Nelyafinwë was not his father, but that was beside the matter at hand. He deserved it just for being his son. Just for existing! He would be destroyed beyond the margin of death, to the limit where Nelyafinwë would beg in sobs for death and then beg no more for death because he would no longer know what death was!

And if Mairon succeeded now with Fëanáro, it will prove Nelyafinwë doomed to the mercy of Melkor's own hands. This was the key, and though bodily torment had aided in it greatly, Melkor had seen that this might be the final step.

Because, though the screams of his body and wailing of his fëa had been music unto his ears, Melkor delighted not in the doings upon the pitiful creature as the Orcs did, though all the same he smiled at it. Simple in mind and black in heart as they were, his children enjoyed Nelyafinwë and, certainly, they enjoyed all the beautiful thralls and professed such endearment in many unique fashions. But, like children indeed, they delighted in only the artless of things, and the endless blood and gore of the oh so deserving Elves was enough for them. But after a while it became tedious. But deeper did Melkor see, and he relished in that he saw, for he felt a renewal of life at an Elf's desiring of death, and seldom was death desired by bodily torment alone. And with Nelyafinwë Melkor found it entertaining how many methods were successful in achieving the Elf's hunger for the secession of Living. For one, Nelyafinwë once hated the dark and now loves it, craves it, relishes in it. A reason existed why Mairon brought a brightly flaming torch with him each visit. Aye, their long-fermented plans were bearing fruit, and a paramount importance of it was that Mairon had long been engaging in with much, much patience. And succeeding.

Amid the long time in passing, so great was the destruction and eroding of memory that the broken Child even remembered no longer anything well of his brothers. Some of the Elf's knowings had been of ease to eradicate, and some had been as painstaking as the Wars he and his spineless Brethren had fought. Dearly would Melkor love to see the sheer hate and disdain in Nelyafinwë's eyes when looking upon any of them now. But Mairon had done well in bestowing his treatment upon any love, respect, or admiration for nigh all beings significant to the Elf's stubborn sustaining of hope. Any Melkor had deemed worth tainting within the Elf's vaults of memory had been taken care of.

All except for one.

Melkor stirred himself and glanced around his empty Hall, unmoving for a moment in the tomb silence. He cast down his gaze to his throne, made of granular obsidian. He reached a hand into the shadows behind it and withdrew a long, slim object: a sheathed sword. His eyes darkening and thoughts growing blacker, Melkor held the sword before him and studied its fine quality and intricate detail to the hilt and sheath. He nearly growled at the flawlessness in its make. With an eerily slow motion he drew the sword, just enough to reveal the biting steel of the blade. Its razor edge was coated in black streaks, blood long hardened and crusted along the crosspiece. Though it was the black blood of his own children, it could stay rotting on this sword and stain its perfection until the sword was unmade, for all Melkor cared.

It was Nelyafinwë's sword, brought to him at the princeling's capture and presented as the battered Incarnate had been forced to his knees at his feet. But Fëanáro had crafted it. Like everything else made by his hands, this sword and the others of his sons surpassed every other blade to have been made, no matter how great the smith. And the sight of a sword of Fëanáro made Melkor furious. The Noldor had delighted in many things of hidden knowledge that he could have revealed to them, and they had harkened to his words so diligently. The Vanyar as well, though on a lesser scale, for Melkor suspected that Ingwë and his people had held him more in suspicion than trust. And those water-wandering swamp-treaders had not been worth the effort. But as par his expectations, the Noldor had proven to be the most gullible and few had refused his presence or the knowledge he had offered in all humbleness and contriteness. But among those few Fëanáro had been the most adamant in turning him away and barring him from his household. But then Melkor had in that time become a master of patience and had endeavored to then reach Fëanáro through his sons. But Fëanáro had forbidden them to even have discourse with him. And for some unfathomable reason and despite standing great in age and proficient at making their own choices, his children had obeyed as though they had been children indeed.

But no, Fëanáro had not stopped there. Shunning Melkor as he did had been nearly enough to send him into a drunken wrath potent enough to nigh expose his performance of self-abasement and repentance. But no, Fëanáro had sought to make Melkor's anger blacker. With swords. How, by all the wonders of Darkness, had that conceited, pestilent bushel of spite discovered and mastered the craft of weaponry without Melkor first teaching him? None of those overbearing Noldor would now have a blade at their hip if Melkor had not first showed them how! How to learn of the fashioning of swords and tempered steel! How to be skilled in the making of bows and arrows and spears, and even the very shields that they had emblazoned with devices of silver and gold and gems!  _He_  had been the one to teach those ever so pompous Noldor.  _He_ had been the one to reveal how metals can hurt and kill.  _He_  had been the one all had learned the making of swords from! Except Fëanáro, who ever so stubbornly refused anything he freely offered. Which then begged the question and sent Melkor into a cursing rage; how had Fëanáro done it? And not only do it, but do it better than any of the Elves he had taught? Melkor had later learned of Fëanáro's secret forge, but how discovered he the delicate process of crafting a blade? Verily, not from the Valar, for teaching the Noldor of sword-craft without the Valar knowing of it had been one of many things that made Melkor still smile. But Fëanáro had to also go ruin that by being the one Elf who had refused his teachings and still mastered sword-craft, mastered it more than the Elves he had taught.

Never had a creature lesser than his own kind, made from the dirt no less, sparked a fury in Melkor as nearly devastating as Manwë did. And he hated Fëanáro for making him so angry! That anyone less than Manwë can stir such ire in him….

Melkor threw the sword from him, enjoying the echoing sound of its ungraceful clatter, and he let out an acerbic chuckle that sent Orcs mewling in the distance. He glanced around the vastness of the Hall, reveling in the utter consummation of Ancient Darkness that smothered it. Ai, he would dearly love to see Fëanáro's fire attempt to flare in this Darkness, and then dearly love to see him fail to. To have seen Fëanáro smothered in it, drowning, suffocating, the greatest of all Incarnates being beaten until the weakest, the Elf emitting the brightest of Light bowing to and cowering before the greater Dark, being defeated, humiliated, disgraced and degraded and tormented in chains before all….

"Cosmoco!"

Melkor's shout shook the very earth of his caverns and sent out a deep rumble heard by every living creature within. But no answer to the summons came, and in suspicion Melkor cast out his Thought in search of the Úmaia, wondering if he was now foolhardy enough as to possess the daring to disobey. But Cosmoco was nowhere to be found within the vast ranges of Angamando, not even the surrounding mountains. Ah, he had forgotten. No longer able to tolerate the mere sight of the spirit of flame, Melkor had sent him to the eastern mountains on assignment, and he had yet to return. Wise, very wise to hide away in that abode of rock for as long as he could.

Though a pity. He felt the deep desire to lash out, to burn the fuel of his ire on a culprit justly deserving of it. Nelyafinwë was his first choice, but he would receive his in due course when the time was ripe, so Cosmoco was next on his list. Truly, Fëanáro had long been his first choice to make visible his fury for that son of Finwë, but all gratitude be bestowed on his imprudent General for Fëanáro now being beyond his reach.

Melkor had many times since being informed of Fëanáro's death mused on a method by which means he could go and spirit him away from Mandos, where he was now already healing. But it would be complicated, and Melkor was not wholly certain what measures Námo had set within the Halls to ensure the safety and peace of fëar retrieved. Despite their harsh words for the Noldo, Melkor greatly doubted the Valar would hand him over, no matter how courteously he asked. So he had to be stolen. But the time for such a venture was not yet, for he dared not return to the abode of his Brethren until their War was ripe to resume, until all Elves and now Men were beneath his feet. Besides, as Melkor had discovered personally, the dimensions of Mandos were powerful, possessing a resilience to Darkness unbeknown to many. A resilience that surprised even him. Damn Námo and his brood. But Melkor would devise a way. Fëanáro may have escaped him for now through death, but Melkor would see to it that the Elf saw he could find refuge not even in that.

For Melkor needed no body to house a fëa to delight in an Incarnate. Having just the fëa itself to torment and demolish was nigh better, for then it had no body to flee from.

And Melkor needed to ruin Fëanáro even more, never mind how greatly he already had. Because even in death Fëanáro lived on in memory and song, and whether he was remembered with thoughts good or ill mattered not. He was remembered, remembered by all because he was too great an Elf not to be remembered, and that reality alone made Melkor dread still this day what would have become of Fëanáro had he not meddled. For Fëanáro had been an Elf apart, the fire of his fëa untamable and unlike anything he had ever seen in a Firstborn; All Elves would only possess the brilliance of steady stars, but Fëanáro would shadow the Two Trees themselves in his spirit's unparalleled intensity.

It had shaken Melkor for an Elf so great to have been born. Melkor knew wholly every part of the Third Theme Sung before their emergence into Eä, and within that Theme the existence of Fëanáro should have been unreal, for it otherwise must have been of the very highest note in the Harmony. For all the fairness of his hröa and greatness in his face as comparable to any Incarnate, Melkor had looked upon Fëanáro and, like his Brethren, had seen how he had been meant to soar. Sharing the heir of kings, many suns rising within his eyes, he had been made for higher things, and by the works of his hands capable of the greatest of them. His smile shining the brightest and wrath thundering the loudest, he had alone borne the flight of Eagles' wings.

No dust-derived creature deserved to be so great.

It had taken little time and was easier than foreseen to turn all of Aman against Fëanáro, though Fëanáro had aided him unwittingly in the endeavor with his poor responses and fiery assertiveness. Long before Melkor had been freed from his prison, embers had been stashed and burning within the House of Finwë. But though the embers had been great, they had been dormant. And Melkor wondered if all that had happened would have indeed come of that buildup if he himself had not acted as a blasting wind that ignited the fuel of the embers into a raging inferno. All those years Melkor had waited by the measure of his Brethren had been worth it, for it amused him even today how the tension and uproar among the Noldor had all accumulated to a peak and unfolded into chaos. A chaos that had torn apart the Noldor beyond what Melkor had aspired for. And  _that_ , that very chaos pure and destructive,  _that_  was a work of wonder, a beauty from the folds of Darkness if Melkor ever saw one.

If there was anything he relished of Fëanáro, aside from how the Prince had stood up to his Brethren's conceited haughtiness, it was that he had made it so easy for Melkor to ruin him and his people. The Valar had made it easy as well, but still….

Fëanáro had hated him and loudly did so with a passion as sweltering as his own spirit. Really, Melkor suspected no Elf had hated him more than Fëanáro. But, he chuckled, Fëanáro had still had so much to learn, despite all the wisdom of lore and knowledge in the workings of the World he had been gifted with. To learn, for instance, that when it came to hate, to loathing, to reviling and damning another person, no one knew greater how to craft art with it than Melkor himself. None could defeat him in that game, not even his Brethren. And Fëanáro had revealed himself to be an amateur when trying, tangling himself up in a web that sent him unto Formenos as his end result. And for Melkor's end result, he had only to look upon the wellbeing of Aman now. Or rather the utter lack of it.

And the process of such discord had been beautiful. All the tales and whispers and ill-tellings he had spun to ears all too quick to harken had borne fruits of greater sweetness than he had intended. The internal strife of the House of Finwë had presented too great an opening to bypass to dishonor with further falsehoods about her Princes, but the Noldor had been always so proud and arrogant that Melkor had been little surprised to see the people believe the rumors and untruths he had painted to be the epitome of Truth. What proved astonishing, however, and just as exhilarating, was how quick the Noldor had been to believe his words about the Valar. All of the nonsensical claims he had spewed, whether of Ñolofinwë or Fëanáro or their children or the Valar themselves, nigh all of those oh so wise Eldar had believed, or half-believed, his words. In few ways could it have been unspoiled.

Though as Fëanáro had done, his Brethren also had excelled in aiding along his lies, their failure to speak of the Awakening of Men acting as the first steppingstone into a tangled web. For when one rumor was proven true, all Noldor would be quick to believe the other condemning words towards the Valar were too. Melkor knew his Brethren, and he credited them for playing their part well, and doing so in ways Melkor would never have conceived.

For one,  _never_  had Melkor expected the Valar to actually believe Fëanáro to be the sole mover of discontent, simply because he had been the first to speak. To be the sower of discord among his people, though all the Noldor had been smoldering of bitterness and strife. And to believe that actually exiling Fëanáro would restore the broken peace, though all the Noldor had reeked of pride and arrogance. Judged guilty and all others proclaimed guiltless, simply because Fëanáro had been the first to speak. Melkor had witnessed from afar Fëanáro standing alone within the Máhanaxar, and he had laughed as he had not done since bringing to ruin those two Lamps. And hearing his Brethren's accusations against the Elf, while everyone had looked on with pointed fingers and self-righteous faces when they all had deserved to stand within that Ring right next to Fëanáro….It had been too hilarious.

And on his dark throne Melkor laughed aloud, the cutting viciousness of the cackle rebounding off the rock walls of the Hall. And he felt a swell of elation. Such a fool his brother was! And now his poor brother was most assuredly sad. Cloaked in bereavement for all the woes and poisoning of Valinor he had failed to prevent from budding. For all that his Brethren had been wroth and dismayed at the Noldor's rebellious proclamations and spewed their warnings and Curses and pleads, Melkor knew Manwë's heart more than that throne-usurper would want it to be known. And Melkor knew his little brother had wept at the resentment and ire and suspicion the Noldor had loudly declared for the Valar, that Manwë had cried in dismay at the  _hate_  that burned in the Noldor towards him and the other Valar. Yes, Manwë, hate, he snarled. You exist not as lovable as you believe yourself to be. So taste it and weep away that you cannot win the love of all and sundry! Taste the stale bitterness at failing to keep peaceful the wellbeing of Eldar! And tremble in fear again that our War is reawakened, for I will see you weep until you drown in your own tears!

But his little brother had always been that way, grieving when his kindness was rebuffed, acting bereaved when his presence was unwanted. So startling was it that lesser creatures of lesser gen would treat him the same? I wait for you, little brother, Melkor mocked, casting dark Thought into the West. Uptake our War again and lay the first blow, and be known to all beings of the Third Theme as the one who kindled the kiln to the World being brought to ruin by our fires once more.

Only, he knew Manwë was fully aware Melkor waited for him to act first, for Manwë to become the Doomsman of Life when commanded he again that their War awaken from its dormancy and become as vicious and Song-defiling as it had been in the Folds of Eä. And thus become damned in the One's eyes when all the Children underwent death as a result. Only, for all the temptations Melkor backhanded across his face, Manwë knew Melkor waited for him, which had not been supposed to happen. Manwë's cognizance of what Melkor did and how he played his little brother for the fool he was had not been meant to blossom until much later, after so many more bitter fruits had been spawned.

And for such hindrance in his plans, he could lay all gratitude at Fëanáro's feet. Again. Melkor's smile grew rancid as that accursed name nested in his mind once more. Truly, he had laughed at the sight of Fëanáro standing humiliated within the Ring of Thrones, though it would have made that day for Melkor wholly euphoric and merry if Fëanáro's very face had been forced to the ground. A pity it had not been.

But he had not expected Fëanáro to recount all his wisely wrought deceits to Námo. By poison's tendrils, the Elf had been far great enough in might and strength of will to lie to that  _judge_ , or at the very least deny answers to his questions! And Melkor, even as he sat upon his throne, still stood astonished and infuriated that Fëanáro had not thought to. Thus the first hindrance. And just when all had been well according to his design. What had become of Fëanáro being wise beyond the wont of his ilk? Námo was neither that terrifying nor that hard to resist, unlike some.

No, no. Not to Tulkas. No, no, no.

But really, Fëanáro had felt it prudent to keep silent on other matters, but when came it to Melkor's very truthful lies of the Valar, no. Naturally not.

Mayhap he should also have sent whispers among the Noldor that to reveal strife among themselves only provided the Valar more fuel to assert their Authority, to crow of how righteously they walked and how wrong the Noldor were. That the Valar were ever waiting for Noldor-induced openings to exert their might. Melkor had thought that to be a default understanding among those insolent curds, but clearly not. He would have to allow for that mishap in his devices when he returned for the Vanyar.

But overall, Melkor had been well-pleased by how fluently the Noldor had bounced on their strings, being the cause of friendship destroyed between Valar and Eldar. His War with Manwë was reawakening, the World to the core was his to command, and his Brethren cowered behind their hills, wringing their hands as they awaited with bated breath what new woe Melkor would deliver.

It had been nearly perfect.

Except for Fëanáro.

Melkor glanced over again to the sword where it lay, briefly desiring to blacken it. All things in Aman had went according to his design, which then prompted the question: Where had he failed with Fëanáro? The Noldor had been so easy, so very easy to tear asunder and make them the cancer of Valinor. So easy, until it came to Fëanáro, which wrought in Melkor confusion as much as it fed his wrath. Yes, Fëanáro had acted the greatest aid in the furthering of his machinations, but just as greatly he acted the greatest hindrance. Fëanáro had been the first to speak, but of the last to harken to the poison Melkor had beset upon the Noldor. And even after all Melkor had spoken that fanned their fire until the fiercest flame of the Noldor burned in Fëanáro….Even after his whispers of the Valar were proven true….After all of it, Fëanáro had still refused him, even at the pinnacle of time when he should have finally trusted Melkor.

Formenos burned his mind and he without thought tore furrows through the rock of his throne with his nails. In Formenos Melkor had been close. So close he had tasted it! All things Melkor had attested had been fulfilled, so why had Fëanáro still doubted the value of his words? Even his warning of the threat towards the Silmarils had been proven true! Fëanáro had stood there to hear the Valar demand he break the Silmarils, seeing even then Melkor had spoken truly that the Jewels had not been safe. With Men, with judgment, with Jewels, the Valar had fulfilled all the tales he had spout of the vicious liars and cunning slavers they were. Provided all the proof, one would go to believe Fëanáro would have trusted Melkor when finally all had been taken from him, when Melkor had stood on his doorstep offering promises to deliver him and his precious Gems and sons all from thralldom to freedom in far lands.

But no. Fëanáro's heart had been still ruled by his Light, by the Silmarils, just as since the beginning it always had been. He had thought his new web of lies of Ñolofinwë plotting to supplant Fëanáro and his father, and that the Valar had supported him in the endeavor because Fëanáro had not given the Silmarils into their keeping would have at last persuaded Fëanáro to trust him, but no. And Melkor, by his whole Existence, could not fathom why. Verily, by the boundaries of Melkor's scheme, Fëanáro had been wholly justified to be furious with his Brethren, but why also with Melkor himself? Why, by all the endless deeps of the Void, had Fëanáro held such wrath for him too? And a wrath so fierce and wild that Fëanáro had not made even the Valar taste? He, who had worked to befriend Fëanáro as no other, who had offered everything one of his might could give, who had prostrated himself and appeared to Fëanáro as the most fair and humble and honest of all the Valar? Why had that swiving cockroach been undefeatable?

In a flurry Melkor was off his throne, his feet carrying him to and fro across the dark, iron-veined stones of the Nethermost Hall. And he was shaking, his eyes black as he heard through the earth more plumes of fire spew from the depths. Damn Fëanáro! So much he hated him, so much he wanted to take hold of his fëa and do unto it as he had never done unto a Firstborn before. If he knew what was well for him, Cosmoco had better have underwent his return journey to his Lord's Dwelling.

Melkor halted in his meandering, forcing himself to feel the comforting chaos of the Darkness, to return to that state of calm he had mastered in Valinor. Though it made his face no less blacker. He knew he had erred in Formenos in speaking of the Silmarils. He had been too quick, despite how fearful he had made the Noldo. But when Fëanáro….Melkor trembled. When Fëanáro had looked upon him come that moment….Melkor trembled again. With every dimension of his sight he recalled how he had seen the fires of Fëanáro's heart be kindled, how his eyes had blazed and his sight had burned through all the fair-semblance Melkor had donned to the dark depths of his mind. Then the hate overcoming the terror, seeing through Melkor as no Elf should have been able to do….

 _Jail-crow_. The whisper made Melkor want to flatten mountains. And he trembled for a wholly different reason. Jail-crow. In his mind it reverberated in an endless haunt, alongside the echo of a slamming door. Such insolence, such a conceited act of highbrowing, for who would dare to shut a door in the face of the mightiest of all dwellers of Eä? None possessed the audacity to turn him away, but then Elves were such foolhardy creatures. But why had his unassailable words not at least grown roots in the mightiest of them, in the Elf who had who been provided the greatest motive to fly from his Brethren's nest? No answer was conceivable, for fair-seeming had all his words been, and both Eldar and Valar had profited much from his aid. Even to Manwë it had seemed his evil was cured! Manwë, who knew him best. None should have been able to see through him when from Manwë himself Melkor remained veiled. Thoughts blacker, Melkor looked again to the vault of Nelyafinwë, his face darkening.

Work you harder, Mairon, he thought as he lowered himself back upon the seat of his throne. Nelyafinwë carried the blood of his father and grandfather, and all the folly and thought with it. So christened the Third Finwë indeed, that eldest grandchild being so much alike in the fruits of his labors as the first and second Finwë before him. By his sure march to Beleriand, by his futile attempts to do battle with Melkor, Nelyafinwë had proven he would follow Fëanáro in death if Death before him were the last door. And as Fëanáro was to Finwë and Finwë to Fëanáro, when it came to the ultimate choice between living and dying, Nelyafinwë would follow his father before failing him, whether deserving of death or not. Melkor snorted.

What a lovely sentiment.

After all, instigating dissent amongst Finwë and Fëanáro and Fëanáro and his sons had failed to blossom, failed to even plant any seeds. So let indeed Nelyafinwë follow his dead father. Let him follow Fëanáro even into the crippling madness and lead him into as fine an end as it did his father. Through fire, Mairon, destroy him!

To his devout disciple Melkor nigh sent another directive again to enforce the oath Nelyafinwë was doomed to swear. To impress the infinite importance of this moment. But Mairon knew. Melkor could feel his tension, the anticipation, and though Melkor felt speaking would disturb naught of the process, he wanted not to risk breaking the spell that had fallen over the  _jail-crow_ _'s_  vault. For this was it. Nelyafinwë had no reaction to the mention of his father. Now to Mairon's words the Elf was listening. Wondering. Not reacting as he had. Melkor felt something stir within, a strange feeling, and one he could only term as exhilaration.

And as he waited, Melkor began again to drift in thought to further revelations he bit by bit had gained, the watching of Nelyafinwë prompting them to surface. And Melkor near grumbled in begrudging their truth.

For Melkor had grown in understanding of where unerringly the kink had been in the design to bring Fëanáro to perfect ruination. Observing Nelyafinwë of late in both deed and word had inspired sparks of certain realities.

For one, Nelyafinwë was proving to be far more loyal to his father than to the Silmarils, however much one went in accordance with the other. And Melkor had not expected such a thing to occur, though he supposed he should have foreseen the likelihood, for had not Fëanáro been the same in correlation to his father? Again, why should he expect differently from the very get of the Spirit of Fire?

Smiting Finwë unto his much-deserved death had proven a good deed, if Fëanáro's reaction to it were anything to speak by. But now Melkor questioned if he should have slain that Unbegotten sooner, and with that finding a method to more deeply frame the Valar with the slaughtering than he had this time. Instead of warning Fëanáro of the danger the Valar were to the safekeeping of the Silmarils, he should have fashioned that same panic-inducing fear in the Elf, but instead with his father. For dozens of years by the measure of his Brethren Melkor had walked those Elf-infested Lands. Walked free, all the while watching and listening and learning, keeping Fëanáro closest in thought.

And Melkor had seen many things.

He had seen the crippling limitations of these Firstborn and how they fit so perfectly in the mold of his design. He had seen how the Noldor had been easiest to target and feed with their self-seeking hearts. He had seen that the House of Finwë, all his children and grandchildren, all the lords and gentry, would unwittingly provide him the flawless nest to nurture a harvest. For Melkor recalled easily how long he had been at work, and how slow and barren his labor first was. Until he found a home with the Noldor. With self-absorbed folk like the Noldor and blind fools like his Brethren, it was guaranteed that sowed lies would never lack a harvest. And with proud Ñolofinwë and proud Fëanáro and proud Indis and proud grandchildren and proud lords and proud wives, Melkor had indeed found it inviting to rest from his toil while all those bountiful others had reaped and sowed the lies in his stead. He never had thanked them for that, he realized.

Oddly enough, Finwë had been the only one to keep an unusually watchful eye on him.

He had not liked that.

But all the same, just as he had seen the hearts' truths of all of Finwë's brood, he had perceived in Fëanáro the most. And he had seen the double bond of love upon Finwë and Fëanáro, how Finwë had been to his son both father and mother. He had seen that Fëanáro had held a chief share of Finwë's thought, and thus did Finwë know of the building of the Silmarils. And as Melkor had himself, so also had Finwë seen what had happened amid the making of the Jewels, what had caused Fëanáro to obsessively hoard them afterwards. Some time it had taken Melkor to deduce it, but it had been worth the puzzling, for he had wondered why Fëanáro had kept the Silmarils secreted away save from his sire and sons.

For why would he? Be it any craft, an artisan sought praise for his work, to make delighted others by the labors of his hands. It was natural and the Noldor had been exceptional in blustering their works as much as the Lindar had their ships and the Vanyar had their songs. But Melkor had to laugh, and he laughed aloud indeed. For not one person among the ever so wise Eldar had questioned why Fëanáro, greatest craftsman and maker of wonders, had refused to boast of the Silmarils that earned even his Brethren's awe. The one time and one creation Fëanáro had wielded all justice to be most proud in his labors, and Fëanáro had said no. When all others would have shouted their creation to Eldamar and reveled in all the words of praise, Fëanáro had refused to.

And confounded, Melkor had wondered why. So as long and arduous as it was, he had sought an answer and had found it. Oh, had he found it. Found why Fëanáro had trusted only his sire and offspring to lay sight on his Jewels. And he again laughed at how his Brethren had been blind to it, so mesmerized by the Silmarils that they had failed to look beyond them to their maker; if only they had but learned of Darkness they would have known how to look to the Dark beyond the Light. But Melkor had known in truth why Fëanáro had stood so greedy for them. And thus had Melkor  _thought_  that speaking of the threat to the Silmarils had been the perfect approach to strike Fëanáro in both Tirion and Formenos. But no.

He grumbled. He knew he should have taken note sooner of the high importance of Fëanáro sharing only his greatest work with his father and sons. For Melkor had realized too late the hold Finwë had held on Fëanáro's heart, in how the father claimed the heart of his son more than the matchless works of his hands ever had. And as later proven, Finwë had been the breaking of Fëanáro, not the Silmarils. He really should have murdered Finwë sooner. He should have been silent on the Jewels, speaking instead of a threat to Finwë, and mayhap then Fëanáro would have been ruled by fear great enough to listen! Mayhap then he would have been frantic enough to welcome Melkor's counsel! Instead of slamming that cursed door in his face. For so long Melkor had labored to destroy Fëanáro, and there Finwë had stood before his face, ripe for the slaying to make happen Fëanáro's ruin all the faster.

Wonderful. Now he was regretting that. Melkor wished he could invert the chronicles of Time just to see how effective it would have been to his design to kill Finwë earlier. He pondered. Mayhap if implemented, such a maneuver would do well with Ingwë and Ingwion when he returned for the Vanyar. Though with them it might be a bit trickier, not the least because their bond of love was less great than that of Finwë and Fëanáro, who stood unparalleled. But perchance if he exploited Ingwë's worship of the Valar in correlation to Ingwion's love for his father….Hm, it was a start, made all the more pertinent with the high and mighty titles they donned. Jealousy always worked, be it among any ilk, but he would design anew for the Vanyar later. At present the Noldor held precedence on his list. They, and those inconvenient Dark-elves that made pest-ridden his lands. Melkor was still vexed by how they had multiplied like fleas in his absence.

But first came the Noldor. And now since Fëanáro was no longer in his design to mold, Nelyafinwë was now the key to the fruition of his plans Fëanáro had been meant to deliver. And as it had been with Fëanáro, as Melkor had learned too late, he needed to see this father-barrier broken in Nelyafinwë. Attacking the whelp's oath to reclaim the Silmarils would have the same outcome as Melkor had in Formenos, for Nelyafinwë swore no oath for himself, but in devotion to his father.

Therefore, it was through the father they would make Nelyafinwë see reason.

Melkor sighed, summoning patience as he touched his head to the back of his throne. Now, he waited. Just waiting. Waiting and Watching. Waiting was a thing he had long mastered, but all demons take flight, how he hated it!

And now Melkor did naught but listen to the words of Mairon, listened with a tension so great it manifested in his body. Mairon enquiring what hope the Elf yet clung to was redundant, yet so imperative. All knew Nelyafinwë held to no hope since he kept attempting to flee in fëa from this Hell of Living for instead the Halls of Death. And though Nelyafinwë knew Mairon continued thwarting the absolute severance of fëa and hröa by too many means to count, Melkor knew that by Mairon suggesting Nelyafinwë retained still some form of hope because he yet  _lived_ , the very suggestion was starting to make Nelyafinwë wonder if it was true. And when came the moment Nelyafinwë was open to believe it, Melkor would give the princeling just the  _hope_  he needed.

But for now, Melkor watched and waited.

O = O = O

Maitimo stared at him, a disconcerting feeling growing in his chest. Why did the Bright One smile? And why did he look at him so? Why did he smile?

And on the Bright One went smiling, though it did diminish as a keener glean shown in his eye. "Heed you my words now, little one?"

Did he ever run dry of words? Yes, Maitimo was heeding them, for his focus felt abnormally rapt, though he could fathom no reason why. Already he felt his mind circling.

The corner of the Bright One's lips twitched, his gaze as penetrating as it was steady. "What is unclear in that I say? I was only making clear how it was that even your father proved to belong to Darkness."

Maitimo stared at him, unmoving. Before he could think of any cohesive response, the Bright One looked up to Fankil, the beatific smile growing, and Maitimo grew only more baffled at the sight, though part of his mind yet retaining some function absently registered how delightful it would have been to see that smile in brighter days.

The Bright One looked back at the supine Elf, giving a subtle but telling nod of his head. "Glad I am to know you agree."

Agree to what? He could hardly make sense of the babble of words.

"I was just speaking of your father, Fëanáro," he clarified. And he let the words fall with all gentleness in his voice. "You recall him, no?"

Recall him…father. Certainly he remembered him. Picking pickax, he was his father!

The Bright One nodded. "Very good. I simply say that in how your father evinced to walk in Darkness, so do you also, just as greatly as he had."

Maitimo froze, his heart skipping a beat. Several beats. A disconcerting sensation stirred in his blood and he furrowed his brow, mind suddenly racing. He did not like this.

He could barely reflect on it further before his attention was vied for and then taken by the Bright One undergoing a further change and, contrary to all impossibilities, somehow growing brighter and thus making the contrast greater with the sepulchral darkness following in his wake. Powers above, he was so beautiful.

Maitimo wished light to be nonexistent if only that then the Bright One could go without it.

The Bright One gave a slight, dismissive shrug. "If you so doubt me, just think on it, beloved," he reasoned. "Just as the Valar have little understanding of Darkness, so they did also with your father. Verily, they understood him as much as they could control him, and we see how well at that they did. For though they would deny it unto the ceasing of Eä, by evidence of all that followed, they had grown fearful of your father's words, in silence knowing they could defeat them not. And thus, they banished him from the place your folk were all too willing to listen, silencing him by the shrewdest means thinkable."

Disbelief and perplexity rose up. The Valar, fearful?

The Bright One slowly nodded, suddenly quite grave in demeanor. "Yes, my child. Your father was too prodigious, the very dust stirred from his feet gleaming gold. He was great, for did that exalted Eönwë not bow to him? The very Herald of Manwë bowing to the Elf least likely to bow in return…." He quirked at eyebrow with a knowing tilt to his lips. "Speaks much, does it not?"

Maitimo had never paid much thought to it, but now that he did….

The Bright One went on. "Thus, the Valar were made to play you, though such an approach was no novelty." He shook his head, disappointed and mayhap even disgusted. "You were naught but a pawn in Valarin games, mayhap not reacting as they desired, but reacting nonetheless. And your father they played akin to a lute. My lord Melkor sought to aid him and the Valar grew wrathful indeed that Fëanáro among many paid heed to the truths they had long hid, not the least their slanted treatment of you Eldar. As evinced by your grandfather's uncouth remarriage, the Valar clearly favored the Vanyar above all others. Closest to them in heart as much as they were to Taniquetil. And northward the Noldor were plainly delving too deep for answers to the Valar's mysteries. And when came along Fëanáro who burned with a fire too wild to be tamed, their eye on him remained. Encouraged along they did his peerless labors and lore-driven mind. And they applauded his efforts.

"But when came the moment Fëanáro finally crafted a beauty that earned even their hard-won awe, your father denied them it. How insolent, no?" The Bright One softly chuckled, a delightful sound to hear. "In this day I laugh still. My lord told me the tale, you see, of how the Valar faulted your father of being fast bound with greed to the Silmarils that were his alone by right. And all the while they were just as greedy, just as fixated, and just as desirous as any Elf for the sight of a Silmaril. Poor Valar, for once being denied that they demanded.

"And look how it was made assured and known abroad of how the Valar were ill-pleased the Silmarils lay not with them. But in that, my lord Melkor spoke highly to me of Fëanáro, proud that at least one Elf stood no longer blinded by the Trees. It is as I told you, of how the Makers of Light master all who walk in it. And when your father himself became a master of Light, molding it according to his will, he broke free of the Valar's hold. And behold what happened: they no longer could contain or control him, could not stop his tongue or command anything from him. He was free. Lord Melkor spoke much of the absolute freedom that lay in Darkness and Fëanáro was quick to discover it himself."

Maitimo felt a low burn in his blood at the words, for his father had taken no counsel from Melkor.

The Bright One lifted an elegant eyebrow, clearly skeptical. "Really? Or had your father simply told you this? As all other Noldor your father had too taken counsel with Melkor. How could he not? He who starved for knowledge refuses Melkor who stood the greatest in knowledge than the Valar together?" He huffed, lightening the derision with a smile. "Absurd, dear one."

He had not.

"Yes, he had," the Bright One upheld. "If not so, how learned your father the complexities of sword-craft? How went he to outrival all others in a matter you claim he never learned?"

Because…because this was his father they spoke of. It was his father, not any other Elf, but his father. His father had been a maker of wonders. It was what he did.

The Bright One gave a nod of concession. "True, and the Valar would speak differently, but I digress, for their hearts had been beating with hypocrisy in those days. As far as my opinion matters, the Valar warranted as much shame as they cast to your father." Maitimo looked at him, the question clear in his hazed eyes, and the Bright One answered. "You know of what I speak. For instance, the Valar were quick to condemn your father for forging secret swords, but let the children of Indis go unrebuked for doing the same. What justice is that?"

In that he had a valid claim, Maitimo had to concede.

But the Bright One demurred. "I know you need not my assurance, but you did well in leaving those lands when you did. Too much had the Valar been exerting their power, when they had long ago deemed it unlawful to restrain you. And restrain your liberty to walk freely they did, shunning the Noldóran his right as king to make stand trial his subject, even if that subject be his son. Indeed, they gave Finwë not even a chance to summon your father to answer for any wrongdoing. Yes, the Valar would never meddle, truly, just as they promised you in old days." The sarcasm went not unheard. "But the Valar's silent lordship over Eldamar grew prominent when you Noldor turned to the unlighted, to the dark knowledge they denied existed. Swords and spears and shields….Once so gullible to the Valar's promises of peace, you were all quick to crave Melkor when discovered you secrets the Valar refused to teach, heeding the one Vala who suddenly and delightedly offered to teach it." He cocked his head ever so slightly. "As I spoke, knowledge is power and you Noldor verified it. For as you grew in darker knowledge, you grew in greatness, and the greater you grew the less the Valar could command obedience from you. And in name of that greatness, you left Aman if only to show you could."

No, wait….He left Valinor for his father. For many things, but something with his father….Wait….

"Yes, you did," the Bright One agreed. "I only said you leaving Valinor to prove you could was one reason of many among the Noldor. But your father had ever inspired the decisions of your heart. Disbelieve me you will, but I speak very,  _very_  truthfully in that my lord Melkor never sought death upon Fëanáro."

Maitimo stared at him, the very look speaking tomes of words.

The Bright One nodded. "I know. Difficult to believe. But at Lord Melkor's wrath your heart would have quailed had you beheld it, for seldom had I myself seen it so terrible. To this day Gothmog regrets it still, as my Master's attention remains on him. Actually," he chortled, "I almost pity him for the enormity of his erring. For upon learning of your father's demise my lord Melkor was most displeased, to put it mildly."

Maitimo felt something tickle the back of his mind. Wait…

A notable pause fell in the Bright One's speech, but he went on with a disarming grin. "But now I go too far into conversation's thither lands. You now lay on a crossroad, my sweet. To return to the topic of your father, as he apparently commands your devotion even in death, what would your father say to do at this crossroad?"

He wanted to sigh, wondering what the Bright One intended to blather on now.

"Well, would he instruct you to forsake the Silmarils or your life?"

Maitimo cringed. His father would have never demanded such a choice from him.

The skeptical look returned. "Really? I beg to differ. Louder do deeds speak than words, and with your father it is just as I taught you of your brothers: Melkor offered to them your freedom from this place, if they would only leave him be. But, evidently, higher precedence does their desire of material things take over their love for their eldest brother."

Maitimo felt his limbs begin to tremble in distress again. Quiet, just be quiet.

"Again and again have I told you that Truth is seldom sweet than unbearably bitter. But as is your wont, you refuse to listen. And just as it is with your brothers, it was with your father. And if only you would open your eyes to it and  _see_  instead of deluding yourself, you would agree."

He attempted to shake his head, denying the two were one in the same. Really, the Bright One knew not half of it if he thought so.

"Do I not?" he challenged. "Your brothers concern themselves not with you, and neither did your father. Solely was his love for his Silmarils and Finwë. For all he might have worded otherwise, his deeds showed it."

Maitimo felt his breath leave him. He was lying. He knew he was.

The Bright One gave him a gentle shake. "Aim not your disgust to me, little one, for I speak the truth," he softly rebuked. "But since this rather simple truth confounds you, let me shed some light: Your father spouted much in the ways of abhorrence towards Melkor, and then you followed him in swearing an Oath that remains branded to your memory. And then even amid his last moments of living, he bid you swear again the same Oath. If your father's words of Melkor were true, and knowing even a little what such an endeavor would entail to reclaim the Silmarils, then much love must he have held for you by bidding you pledge yourself to that Oath."

He did.

A pause, and the Bright One's gaze was indecipherable. "Then you accept your father's words of Melkor as lies and mine truth? One or the other, beloved. Little can you have both. Either Fëanáro bid you reswear the Oath with wholly knowing it could and most assuredly would send you to death, or since he loved you and would not wish death upon you he then knew no death would come of the Oath, thus proving my words of Melkor true, in that my lord sought not to ruin you. And if in secret, Fëanáro knew so in all ends." He lifted his shoulders in an innocent shrug. "So which is it? Either way was treading a dark path, either not loving you enough to spare you, or your father trusted Melkor to not deliver death unto his  _beloved_  sons."

Maitimo stared at him aghast, his mind exhausted from the spinning of where one tale began and ended, over and over until he knew not which was which anymore. The answer tickled his mind and he tried to savagely tear through whatever veil was shrouding it, but the Bright One was ever watchful, and he could have spat at him. The answer was there, the straight truth, just a reach away and why could he not grasp it?

Even as he struggled and fought the onslaught of the Presence building within, he felt a soothing touch to his mind and the thing tickling his memory faded away. Despair swept over him. Where did it go?

"So what counsel would your father give?" the Bright One pressed. "To accept my lord's offer to reclaim the Silmarils, thus and at last fulfilling the Oath that leads you? To learn the truths of Darkness as your only undertaking to recover the Jewels? Or would he counsel to toil away in this misery when naught of benefit would come of it?" He looked shrewdly at the Elf. "I think the answer is quite plain."

Into the filthiest pits of grime with what you think, Maitimo cursed, however much his fëa wailed. He knew his father. He knew he would never have demanded his sons to give themselves to Darkness. His father had hated the Dark, would have sought to be himself slain before heeding it.

The Bright One's brow furrowed. "You confuse me, beloved, for as I again and again say, you and your father proved already to be of the Ancient Darkness. For are your hands not stained with Elven blood?"

Maitimo looked up at him, a foreboding chill shooting through his bones.

The Bright One gave a mirthless smile. "The slaying of kin should be perceived as beauty in itself, though merely of a darker kind. But to make my case, what slaying of kin is done without a dark heart? Such is why I spoke the Lindar also proved to belong to Darkness, for as you know they landed the first blows and were the first to slay kin. And your desire to kill in return…how is such not dark?"

Wait, wait, wait! He had held no such desire. Violent discourse exchanged, swords drawn, blood being shed, time slowing even as it sped, and so many of those he cared for in danger of being slain. Even now the memories were blurred and chaotic, no matter how desperately he worked to clear them. All remaining that stood clear was –

"All remaining that stands clear, dear one," he firmly interrupted, "is that you are all shedders of blood. In all ends you all are. And if such  _chaos_  was not born of Darkness, then of what was it born? Blessed Valarin Light?"

Wait….

"Precisely, sweet one," he spoke with another sweep of fingers against copper hair. "It was a deed of evil, done only by those with hearts dark enough to do it. Your father not the least of them, he who was in the end moved by Darkness in all he did."

No. His father had hated it.

"Did he? To me it seems by word and deed your father hated more the restrains of Light and the Valar who made it. In the end, your father's fruits had blossomed darkly and without regret, for no bane of Darkness ever fell upon your family."

Wait….

The Bright One's voice grew softer, and infinitely intimate. "The answer is before you," he crooned. "Your father's heart was ultimately of the Ancient Darkness, and know you why?" He leant down and breathed into his ear: "Recall the Oath you swore."

As if heeding the very command, a memory powerful and illustrious surfaced against his will. And though lights and sights and sounds flashed around in his mind, all that came clear were a select few words, their very utterance stirring long hidden remembrance in his chest:  _To the everlasting Darkness doom us if our deed faileth_. That was it.

"And such is all you need," the Bright One whispered again. "For if Fëanáro so loathed Darkness as you attest, why would he risk damning himself to it? And bring the same peril unto his beloved sons, no less? Who fair-minded and well with reason would contemplate binding themselves forever to that they loathe most?"

And at those words Maitimo froze, overwhelmed by the sudden crashing revelation that came. Those words, they were it. No longer could he either see or hear or feel the Bright One, for his mind now swarmed with the onslaught of recollections that now came. The recollection that of all people fair-minded and well with reason, his father had no longer been one of them. And as though that unlatched a sluice gate, more realizations came. And Maitimo remembered.

He remembered everything.

The memories flew before his eyes, so bright and potent that not even the Presence of the Bright One could eradicate them.

And Maitimo's memories came clear: he remembered his last words to his father, the look in his father's eyes as the Blessed Light faded from them, the Fire extinguished and his very body crumbling to ash that had blown in his face. His last battle against Moringotto, witnessing all the courageous Elves who had stood alongside him perish under Orcish blade and Balrog flame. Being dragged to Angamando, stripped of any dignity and forced to his knees before the Dark Throne. Humiliation, laying sight on the Silmarils, countless slaves speaking a different tongue, toil at the smithies and mines and whips and iron-clad fists….

But more came to him even clearer.

He remembered coming upon his grandfather's body, smote and ruined. Taking up that first corpse in his arms. Finwë's last words, the forlorn and knowing look in his eyes. Makalaurë beside him as they rode hard from Formenos. Makalaurë always beside him. Death of Light and a Darkening that smothered. Anger burning in his heart as his father stood alone within the Ring of Doom. Overwhelming heartache at bidding Findekáno farewell. Overwhelming desolation at kneeling on the shores of Losgar as black fumes stung his eyes. His mother bidding a tearful and bitter farewell. Harsh Vanyarin tongues wagging freely at Noldorin desire to depart for far and new lands. Watching his father at the forge. Holding his first sword. A dark figure upon a precipice whose Voice made tremble every fëa that heard.

But more than anything and of the most heart-rending, Maitimo could never erase from memory the way Fëanáro's face had transformed when learning from Maitimo himself that his father was dead. Had died over a day earlier while all others, even the Valar, went on lamenting and grumbling about the loss of Light. Never could he forget that bone-chilling scream of anger and heartbreak his father had wailed in the Máhanaxar. Never could he forget just standing there, for once having no inkling as to what he should do.

And never could he forget how great the grief had been in his father's face, so great that everyone who had witnessed it forgave Fëanáro for every bitter thing.

And at that final remembrance and with one mighty heave, Maitimo cast the Presence of the Bright One out from his mind. For though Maitimo was rendered incapable of witnessing it, so bright and powerful at that moment did the fire of his fëa flame that Balcmeg yet present cowered against his wall, quailing in fear and covering his eyes at the brilliance that blinded him, a radiance that contested even that of the fiery orb in the sky. And all those present in the Noldo's vault were in turn made to recall how the Valaraukar who smote King Fëanáro had fled in terror before the wrath of Maitimo and his brothers.

And his tongue for once stilled from disbelief, the Bright One could only watch this unfolding of Maitimo, and he trembled.

O = O = O

And watching from the Nethermost Hall, Melkor on his throne became drunk with wrath, and the deathly silence that now fell within the Hall was smothering. For in face and heart the Dark Lord grew dark in a way beyond the power of words as upon his throne he sat motionless, however much his eyes were lively with a terrible light, so fell that hearts would fail before it and so great that no thought could be perceived behind it. And in the insufferable silence, a deep command of his Thought boomed from the depths:

 _Bring him to me_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ingwion: firstborn son of Ingwë who led the Vanyar in the War of Wrath  
> Noldóran: the title of the King of the Noldor that Eldar would name him with, comprise of Noldor and aran (king).  
> Boldogs: Cf. Fankil; the Orc-formed Maiar who clad themselves in the stature of Orcs as Sauron would do an Elf, Boldogs being only less formidable than the Balrogs (HoME Myths Transformed X.418)  
> Vorosaitya: Quenya transcribed from Sindarin 'Borosaith', translated to mean 'Everhungry'; an Úmaia of Melkor who stood in his service at the time of this tale, and whom I have borrowed from the earlier tales to make an appearance. (HoME The Quenta IV.139.214) 'Borosaith', however, stands as an earlier rendition for the name of the Úmaia and I opted to transcribe it to Quenya, as the Valarin rendition of the name was not provided by Tolkien.
> 
> Fëanáro untaught by Melkor: Fëanor learned nothing from Melkor, but the rumor that he secretly did was doubtless but one of the many lies of Melkor himself, as he envied the skill of Fëanor and desired to claim part in his deeds. (HoME Of the Silmarils and the Darkening of Valinor X.186)
> 
> On Fëanor's grief: Within the Máhanaxar when Maedhros informed Valar and Eldar of Finwë's death, "all those who saw Fëanor's anguish grieved for him and forgave all his bitterness." (HoME Of the Rape of the Silmarils X.295)
> 
> Finwë and Fëanor's relationship: Contrary to what seems to be popular opinion, Finwë did not love only Fëanor, but loved greatly all his other children "in whom he rejoiced". Fëanor he simply loved the greatest, and "was to him both father and mother, and there was a double bond of love upon their hearts." (HoME Of the Severance of Marriage X.237-8)
> 
> Fëanor's hate for Melkor the greatest: "though snared as others Fëanor was by the lies of Melkor, none of all the Eldalië ever hated Melkor more than Fëanor." (HoME Of the Silmarils and the Darkening of Valinor X.186)


	6. Weep

"The tides of my tears, ever flowing, have burnt up my cheeks with their heat."  
~  _Story of Ali Ben Bekkar and Shemsennehar_ , translated by John Payne

**Chapter 6**

" _Bring him to me._ "

Maitimo gasped, his whole being smothered by newly felt Darkness that leached like serpentine shimmers into his prison. The snarled command of the Dark Lord echoed deep and guttural in the rock vault, and Maitimo felt the drumming of his ears pound through to his heart at all the licentious ire they carried. That voice, deep and dark and home of all malevolence, made his very soul shake as only could a Terror unfounded in the World. He shook. Oh Valar, how he shook as only few times before.

The command echoed, and Balcmeg's yellow eyes contracted to pinpoints of black, a sound somewhere between a snarl and a whimper coming from his snout. The command echoed and the two Úmaiar froze, Fankil shaking first from his daze more or less indifferent to the order from on high. But the Bright One…. Maitimo watched spellbound as the Bright One's visage, dancing with beatific brilliance, coalesced into a sight too terrible to describe, hot anger smoldering in his eyes and molding his countenance until both were absent of all but wrath in its purist form.

Though Maitimo dared not to even breathe, the others watched with no little interest the buildup of rage and fear in the Bright One, his lissome hands clenching into the Elf's battered body until Maitimo writhed at the pain of the bruising grip. With no warning the Bright One stood with an eerie swiftness, throwing Maitimo against the rocky ground, vicious in the shoving, and spun on his heel to the iron door.

"Mend it!" he barked at Fankil as he pointed to the supine creature on the floor, who still struggled to regain the breath knocked from him. And as the Bright One stormed from the chamber, the very fabric of the air rending and bending in his wake, Fankil looked at the thing now remanded again into his care. He smiled.

"Aye," he growled. "Let us mend you.  _Lungorthin_ _!_ " The power of his Voice knocked dust from the vault's roof, booming to the far reaches of Angamando. Terror rocked through Maitimo's frame at the name and Fankil laughed. He stepped closer, seeing what indeed needed mending, lest the fire-haired creature fail to last the day. For in order to speak to the Dark Lord, one needed functional vocal cords. And lungs emptied of the blood filling them. And feet to walk. "Mend indeed," he muttered.

But faster than the wont of creatures less than a spirit of flame, Lungorthin came, a blast of heat shooting through the lower tunnels and thrall vaults and a feral growl echoing unto the Elf's own. Maitimo stared at the door with widened eyes, shaking hard at seeing the diabolical glow of orange through the space between door and stone floor. And a unique surge of Darkness inundated Maitimo's fëa, slashing it with its chaotic lawlessness, for the Tune of this Lord of Flame was an epitome of Disharmony, of an Eru-less delight.

But then they all were.

And with all the force the Bright One had departed with, the door slammed open, Lungorthin ducking into the vault and making its vast space suddenly seem too small. A body of power and shadow, its presence darkened the vault despite the flame that wreathed it. Its streaming mane blazed, making the Orc leap away in fright, and blistering the Elf's ruined skin with the heat of its living fire. And black smoke swirled in the air that burned Maitimo's nose, who coughed agonizingly as he tried to not inhale it.

Lungorthin did not look at Maitimo at his feet but instead glared at Fankil. "Listen, Boldog," it snarled, a whole world of derision in its grating voice. "When next I seek the summons from the muck of Incarnates, I will bellow your name."

Fankil huffed and spat, revealing a row of savage teeth as he barked, "You heard our lord speak. The princeling must be made ready."

Lungorthin looked then upon the Elf and gave a feral smile.

O = O = O

Melkor glided upon the walkway of his Gate, eyes smoldering and searching, looking above to the thousand-foot precipice behind him and out to great expanse of lifeless land beyond the battlements. He searched and searched, eyes dark and keen as a serpent's and narrowing as they saw through airborne filth. He was looking for Mairon, having sensed within the fabric of the air his devout servant's hasty retreat from the tunnels and pits of Angamando. But he was not here. Those about were only those Boldogs and beasts who kept their constant vigil on his Great Gate.

Casting his gaze again upon the shadowy, horrific wasteland, Melkor growled, uncaring as it sent earth to tremble and his newly wrought ravines to upheave. For he grew in ire. Did Mairon too now purpose to flee from him? But casting out his Thought, he swiftly detected the trail of Mairon's unique Resonance in Creation. And turning about to face Thangorodrim, Melkor tilted his head back, looking up and up, and then saw him.

Upon the peak of the central tower that had been built over two leagues tall, Mairon stood on its ledge, unmindful of its smoking top behind him or the ghastly drop before him. The black vapors and fumes poisoning the air around his stronghold, shifting and churning with the bursts of wind and glowing orange from fires spewing from his chasms…they were no hindrance to Melkor's eyes and he saw how Mairon stood there unmoving, rigid, and surrounded by a corona of darkness he was likely unaware of. Melkor scowled. At least he was not hiding.

With a hiss of impatience Melkor stormed from the Gate, the air crackling with flame in his wake and the nearby beast-guardian sniveling and cowering when his Master passed. Coming to the central peak of Thangorodrim, Melkor began its long ascension, keeping his lieutenant in Thought in the event he sought to go elsewhere. With swift and knowing feet that traced the unpaved path a thousand and one times, Melkor was quick to climb two leagues high, one hand ever caressing the purplish black sediment of the smoking tower. And he delighted still in how no light of Sun or Moon could pierce through the ever thickening mass of his gales and tempests of ash. Not unless he willed it to, and he foresaw no reason to let in a fickle thing as light where Darkness and Shadow reigned.

Half way up he sensed eastward a disturbance wreck the patterns of the air, heard the power-driven thrum of wings. Looking hither, Melkor saw the fell, majestic form of Ancalagon flying in, the chthonic black of his razor scales reflecting the watershed of molten fires throughout Angamando. The mighty dragon gauchely landed on a mountain peak, sounding out a deafening roar with an exhaling of fire. It was how he always announced his arrival. Good, he groused as he went onward, satisfied that Vorosaitya was at least one Maia who had done well today. Now to address the other….

Melkor came upon the peak, the glacial air a contrast to the scorching heat of the black smoke bellowing from the gaping hole. Rounding the narrow ledge, Melkor came up behind Mairon who had not moved and whose back remained turned, despite his Master's presence. Ash soft and grey drifted around him in swirls, clinging to his garb and loose hair. But Melkor looked beyond the fair form his servant was wont to clad himself with and observed his ëala, his true form, which revealed all and could hide nothing from its Master.

For all the fairness and majesty Mairon clad himself in, his ëala was nothing of its former glory. For it was now black to the core, tendrils of dark poison weaving in and out, and a whole sort of vulgarity and perversion churning within. As Melkor once reflected already, his unique Voice was all Mairon now retained of his old Self. Thus why he stood as Melkor's finest specimen of his exceptional designing. But despite all devastation wrought of old magnificence, from the core of his spirit Mairon was still a cradle of rare might, a power among his breed matched by few and dreaded by many. But he would have not lured Mairon to his side had it been otherwise.

But presently, for all the brooding stillness he stood with, Melkor saw that Mairon smoldered inside with fury and fear. Fury at his failure, and fear clearly at what he expected to come in result of it. Good.

Melkor glared at his servant and Mairon was quick to respond, turning to look at his Master. "So close," he whispered. The wrath blazed in his eyes, but the fear blazed greater. And though he whispered, it carried the might of a bellow, for where they stood no sound reached, save for eerie winds and puffing smoke.

Melkor let the silence carry. "Very." One word, in agreement no less, but the voice of it sent Mairon to his knees, head bowing and hair falling until he looked to Melkor little better than the thralls he terrified. And Melkor saw he was as much giving obeisance as he was entreating for mercy. "Rise," he ordered.

Mairon stood and Melkor went to him, flitting away ash from his glistening hair and angling up his chin with fingers that channeled the touch of dark delight. He felt Mairon shiver at the tantalizing euphoria he kept just out of reach. "You have yet to tremble, best beloved," he promised. "So ask while I still have patience to be merciful."

Mairon's eyes darkened and Melkor saw how greatly he desired to retreat from him, but he was pleased at how still Mairon held himself. "In your bidding of treacheries unto Fëanáro I fail you again," he confessed, bitterness lining the words. "I went to kiss it kindly for he who is feeble-hearted. Distortions you coach of the father I teach him, and each time I fail." The anger grew in his voice. Anger at Nelyafinwë, at himself, at Fëanáro for being so confusing unto one who excelled in the art of the mind.

Melkor ran his fingers through silken hair, and under the touch Mairon relaxed even as his body grew tense. Melkor forced his voice to one of composure, as neutral as the hue of the ash softly falling between them. "You know your error, lest you seek to play me the fool," he spoke finally. "My mercy unto you may yet be still delivered, so answer yourself this: Why harvest you now against your failure such ire when failures aplenty of the same sort preceded this one?"

Mairon fell silent, his eyes growing distant the greater his mind worked to conjure an explanation. Melkor could see the churning of his thoughts, but waited. "Too fast," Mairon at last confessed, his tone rancorous. "To the name Nelyafinwë yielded not, and too fast sought I then to achieve your will. The strategy to overwhelm him succeeded not as it hitherto had. He reacted. He remembered."

With practiced restraint Melkor held his tongue. "He did," he instead said, "and now you will begin anew your craft to remold the memory of Fëanáro, yet in this heed my warning, my sweet. In this day you broke many grounds you before never had, and if not for your haste you would have fulfilled my will." He lifted an eyebrow. "Harkened you not to my teachings of how these creatures themselves will reveal the devices on how to sow their woe? In that the Noldor excelled and Nelyafinwë is no less a Noldo than they."

Further silence of a smothering kind fell before Mairon lowered his eyes in begrudged concession. "Light. I should use more light."

"Long ago you should have," he scolded, and not lightly. "The greater the princeling's hatred for it grew, the more you should have brought. Long ago was he readied to be shown the fiery pits of this far land he craved, or to be fastened to the crags of my Dwelling and feel that Tree's fruit burn him from within," he growled with a gesture to the gale-ridden skies. "My Brethren, the Noldor, Light – the son of Fëanáro's task is to hate it, not truth, to hate  _them_ , not you. So, beloved, at my bidding you will again work on him and in that time not fail."

"Yes, my lord." Mairon retreated a pace to give a bow, one of reverence and obedience. But when he cast up again his gaze, his eyes shone clearly with confusion. And he hesitated. "Never sought I to question your purpose, but why first must we succeed with Fëanáro before remanding the Elf unto that you will for him? He is well within the web of Darkness' spell, one I would fain see him untangle from."

Melkor considered him with narrowed eyes but saw in him the genuine desire to learn. "It is as I taught you from the start," he answered, eerily patient, "that when comes the coercing of these frail creatures, you take heed of the precedence of the heart." He in Thought gestured Mairon's mind to Nelyafinwë's cell. "Upon that Elf's pedestal does Fëanáro stand. For him Nelyafinwë went into exile. For him Nelyafinwë flew from Valinor. For him Nelyafinwë murdered and left floating in the water those he had slain. For him Nelyafinwë cast his life to the mercy of an oath worthy of my tongue. And for him within that vault Nelyafinwë lays tormented and desolate." A cold smile creased his face. "Appreciate you now, my dearest? Our kingly guest begins now to perceive the farce of love, in that it is naught but weakness that bids welcome to pain when you fail it, when cause you some disharmony in happiness." The smile grew. "Manwë loves me still and behold all the joy it brings him."

"But in his faith in his father, Nelyafinwë stands strong," Mairon argued. "Seldom are such creatures of lesser make so assured. Was Fëanáro truly of Darkness?"

The smile vanished. "Of course, foolish child," he rebuked, and Mairon winced at the harshness of his tone. "Or believe you now that no Elf will fall prey to the Ancient Darkness? That no Elf might herald its greatness from them long concealed?" His face darkened. "For shame you decry the mightiness to you I revealed, fabrics of the Dark once an obscurity to you then and secrets of the Void beyond your ken. Or forget you the power of its seduction, how once you tasted the Darkness from my fingers you yielded to an Ancient Entity more deserving of your devotion than my Brethren? Why as its lord I hold your piety?" He leveled an even gaze upon him. "You and many Maiar not initially pledged unto me knelt to the supremacy of the Darkness I master. Or believe you now  _Elves_  to be stronger than Maiar in resilience to the 'great' Darkness? Verily, go you to be clouded in judgment by one Elf I had cast many a time at my feet?"

Mairon was silent, but Melkor perceived in him no challenge to his words. Weaving his fingers through the hair, Melkor pulled on the strands until his servant's eyes were lifted to his, a question and absolute devotion within them, however clouded over it was by the harrying labor of this day.

"Remember you Telimektar?"

Swiftly did Mairon's eyes darken, as Melkor knew they would. He recalled as well as Mairon did his battle with that Maia of Tulkas, for he had witnessed his lieutenant act with fierce and desperate savagery in that fight. So many amid their Wars about Eä had Mairon cast down and humiliated and terrified, but Telimektar had nigh been his undoing. For indeed, Mairon had emerged from that battle scathed and ruined as he had never been before. But Mairon had nonetheless emerged victorious, dumping Telimektar on the outskirts of the Cosmos battered and crippled, rendered insentient as a gift for Tulkas when found. Even with Melkor's relief and repairing, it had still taken many dozens of years for Mairon to wholly recover, and surely it had taken Telimektar the same.

Actually, Melkor suddenly realized, he questioned the fullness of Telimektar's recovery at all, for he had seen naught of that Maia during his stay in Valinor. Many a time had he been made to venture near the House of Tulkas that sprang high into the air with many stories, and had a tower of bronze and pillars of copper in a wide arcade. Telimektar had not even been there. Or mayhap, Melkor hoped darkly, Tulkas had concealed his Maia from him, predicting his terror upon sight of the Master of the one who had ripped him apart.

Nevertheless, the name Telimektar wrought the effect Melkor desired upon his servant, for though Mairon had wholly recovered, upon his memory that battle was a deep scar. Melkor nodded, reading well the silence of Mairon's response.

"Precisely, best beloved. Telimektar nigh had you in his fist ere you cast him down. I saw naught of him in Aman and know not if he recovered." He lifted up his chin. "But prepare yourself you must, dearest, for when comes the next time for an ultimate battling of Maiar, it will be Eönwë you face. Likened to him, this scuffle with Nelyafinwë is small and petty. So allow yourself to be not defeated by a mere creature of dust."

Mairon briefly bowed his head. "As my lord wills I will strive for the same." He looked at Melkor, a disconcerting light wholly unlike him entering his eye. "When will it come, the War?"

Melkor released his hair. "When Manwë moves," he spoke simply. "When shifts he his airs to be foul instead of fair." Melkor saw Mairon tremble from within and regarded him shrewdly. "You know chaos will come," he reprimanded.

Mairon nodded. "Yes."

"And what lesson long ago had I taught you, best beloved?" He ran the backs of his fingers along Mairon's crown, relishing the shiver it sent through him. "What lesson learned us all upon our coming into Eä?"

"Out of Chaos comes Order."

"And why came you to me?"

"Of your Brethren you were the only one who could fashion Chaos from our Order and deliver it back to Order again."

"And Aulë what?"

Mairon grimaced, more so scowled, and the rancid bitterness was not lost in his voice. "He deserves to be disremembered."

"Now Mairon," he soothed with a slight smile, "It does not well to away with anger or forget whence came such ire, for recall you the wrath of Aulë when went you to leave his service for mine? In all ends, it was my warning to you he fulfilled, making plain your enslavement, however much he attested to want naught but your love. Little did he favor me and he hailed not my authority, and when heard he of your cleaving unto me, so far into pomposity fell he as to forbid it."

Mairon gave a humble shake of his head. "Not wholly, Master. You showed me to be not free and from it you saved me." He looked up to him. "But even more, Aulë could not decide in the weaving of his Song. He would not coordinate as you have. In his designs I was confused, for they wrought so much wasteful friction. All the Valar did. But then to me you showed that the effect of designs can be quickly and masterfully done, with the right will and power applied."

Melkor nodded. "As I spoke, learn the ways of Darkness and master them, and beyond the weakness of my Brethren you will grow. The unfolding of all dramas start with a seed, and the impotence of Aulë was the unraveling of yours."

Mairon lifted an elegant eyebrow. "And for the unfolding of this drama now Fëanáro was the seed?"

Melkor again nodded. "You never met Fëanáro as I had."

The eyebrow went higher. "Had I, would I question otherwise?"

He grinned, a gleeful spark in his eye. "I believe you would question nothing, my sweet. Fire is fire, after all, and it will burn. Feed it healthy wood and it plumes a sweet scent among light smoke. But feed it coal and it will smother with black fumes and a rancid odor. I craved to level to the ground the abode of my Brethren, and the Fire of Fëanáro was enough to burn all of Valinor if fed properly, fed with ill-wrought kindling to harvest poison and not peace. And it was with ease to ignite the Fire of Fëanáro from flame to inferno, to turn into coal the hearts of all those Elves, and then force fire and coal together. And, my will be done, Fëanáro did naught to cleanse the kindling he consumed. For instead Fëanáro had brooded his bitter thoughts, till his brain grew dazed by the black vapors of his heart." The very memory made Melkor feel warm, and his smile grew lecherous. "A work of art it was indeed, Mairon."

Mairon hummed in consideration, his lips pursing in clear envy and eyes glazing over with the imaginings Melkor conjured. And he gave a slight, saddened shake of his head. "I wish that I had known him."

"Known him well you would have." Mayhap even liked him, he added in thought. Or mayhap that ill-begotten Incarnate would have slammed a door in his face too. Feeling those embers of ire be stoked to life, Melkor shook himself and looked down into Mairon's inquisitive gaze. "I had heard the Song of Fëanáro and knew it to be the highest," he avowed. "According to the design of my Brethren, to be an Elf of greatness he was destined. And he was, but not as the Valar commanded. Speak again why you came unto me."

Mairon let out a humorless chuckle. "You were orderly in a manner contrary to them, and over the Chaos of the Themes I spurn you have authority to render from it Order again."

"There you have it," Melkor simpered. "To make perfect and orderly the Themes of Eä as you yearn, one needs the puissance of the Ancient Darkness, and the Chaos of Darkness smolders with such power. This you know well, my dear. Only then will the Order of Eä be armored against the inconsistencies you so fear. But to do this, my Brethren's inconsistent design first must be warped beyond repair and replaced. Thus why I construct Chaos from the matter of their Order and reconstruct from it Order again, a different kind. A new Order."

"Your design."

"Yes, Mairon. Mine." This time there grew on his face a dark, delighted smile. "An Order from which no Chaos beyond my power can be bent. And already my design unfolds. Cast down are the Lamps, the Trees by Darkness and Death seized. And the Valar's attempts to mend my woes are mine, for even their Sun and Moon are shadowed by my crown, cradling fruit yielded from poisoned Trees."

Mairon nodded, a slight lilt playing at his lips. "It gladdens me you hinder them yet. For so long I had doubted –"

"You will doubt no more, beloved," he told, "for I am returned and will not harken to such concern. Your devoutness does you credit, but believe not it excuses your failings. For –" He moved swiftly, catching Mairon unawares as he grasped his chin with one hand, with a bruising grip clutching his jawline with cold fingers. And for all the calm in his voice, it could have not been colder. "I had assured you my pleasure in full, and this award you have not earned. Tell one defense why I should your chastisement withhold and cast you not in the deeps to burn?"

Mairon grimaced at the pain leeching unto his very soul. "I knew him not," he besought, his mellifluous voice strained. "Of the destinies of Fëanáro, in that you saw I am blind. For always with the creatures of earth right before me had I mastered will and mind. Not from afar."

"Hm." Melkor regarded him shrewdly, recognizing a clear argument made. Often had Mairon been less able to do unto creatures as he had been blessed when not physically presented the creature assigned. A weakness Melkor had still to rid him of, and Melkor made a reminder to do so soon. But he did not release his servant's face. "So much more have you to learn, I deem. And many a lesson retaught, it seems." Long did he stare into dark eyes speckled with light bright as jewels. He let go a slight sigh. "Alas that my molding of you is not yet through."

"Yes, my lord."

He tightened his grip again. "And you will drink of the cup I will have sweetly blent for you," he softly promised. But before Mairon thought to acquiesce, Melkor in his might summoned the frore tendrils of Darkness beyond the Folds of Eä and felt its empowering divinity channel through his body. And its fronds leeched through his fingers and danced upon his fingertips, sparking along his grip of Mairon's face. He saw Mairon visibly tremble at the torment of the dark ecstasy not given. That he could smell, but not taste.

Melkor prolonged the tantalizing pleasure on his servant a moment more and pulled away, taking the pleasure with him. And Mairon's expression contorted as one pained. "You have not earned it," he repeated. And Mairon gathered himself before his lord, straightening his back and awaiting his bidding, his eyes devout and bright.

Melkor lifted an eyebrow as he witnessed the confidence return unto his servant. And he ignored it. "But now, I have my guest to tender my mercies to. Our discussion is not ended, but at present…." He gestured to his wide demesne westward, beyond the Secret Gates, and Mairon's keen gaze followed. And upon his servant's eyes Melkor granted the ability to see through the black air and shadows cast by gales that snowed ash. "Hasten you west unto the abode of Noldor and report to me their response to my gift of poisonous fumes and clouds of vapors. And if their strife has led them to divisions anew about the lake. Be swift and return hither, for then southward will you fly and with you will go Ancalagon to set a network of ears upon the kingdom's eaves of that Elf-king. I would his woodlands be thronged." His voice grew fell and ominous, and his eyes held the same warning he had given Cosmoco. "But dread me upon your return then, for with you I am not through, and your lessons will be taught anew."

Mairon looked at him and nodded, no fear in his eyes, only cunning as he thought on strategies to do well with his new tasks. A glow of exhilaration at the dark designs to unfold lit him from within, and he gave a crooked smile. "Your will be done," he murmured, his tongue rolling with reverence. He bowed low to Melkor, hair now thoroughly speckled with ash from the belching chasm beside them. And he rose, turning to the ledge of the peak and leaping off.

What a tool, Melkor thought with a chuckle as his servant disappeared from sight.

Melkor went to the ledge himself and looked down, watching with dispassion as the body of Mairon slowed in its fall, growing disfigured with shadow that writhed at the interchanging melodies of Mairon's unique Resonance among their Theme. And from the shadow black wings sprouted, webbed and fingered with each joint's end barbed with an iron claw. Mairon made no sound, but the air hummed with his swift passage. And he flew off into the dark, a great dark cloud himself, and Melkor watched him go until he was but a speck in the distance.

He could no longer do that, Melkor reflected sourly as he began the long descent to the foot of Thangorodrim. And from there he descended further, heedless of any creature in his way, until he returned to the one place untainted by his Brethren's presence. And he willed the doors of the Nethermost Hall shut behind him. The dome-structured cavern was empty of any living thing and was filled with an oppressing silence. But Melkor's mind was elsewhere. And he meandered to and fro, thoughts flying.

He could no longer do as Mairon did, shifting his shape to clad himself with whatever form he indulged. But it was true also that never had Melkor needed to shift his shape before. There had been no need. Seldom before had he or his Brethren embodied their ëalar in flesh amid their battles in the Days before Days, for to incarnate had been naught but a fancy. In the manner of his Brethren Melkor had clad himself in a physical body in Valinor while feigning repentance, disincarnating when fleeing from Tulkas and Oromë, incarnating again in Formenos, then again shedding the flesh to flee and incarnating again….It had grown more painful each time. It was in Avathar Melkor last had incarnated, but the pain had been so excruciating that he still refused any attempt to disincarnate again. He knew not if he even could. And if he could not again disincarnate, if he had to face the potency of his Brethren in this final body he had taken form in….

 _When will it come?_  Mairon's question echoed in his mind, and he had answered it truthfully. The War would come when Manwë moved.

Melkor paused in his steps, hesitating.

But when would he? Melkor looked around his Hall, remembering clearly when Utumno fell. Manwë had been abnormally slow to attack then, but even then he had not known until too late that Melkor, hidden within the World, had grown again more active. Poisoning the Waters, watching the hills, harassing Quendi, and bringing the will and life of Arda under his dominion while the Valar had instead paid heed to frolicking in their hills and mansions and Light. By chance had Oromë come upon the Quendi, and by ill fortune and great humor did those Elves wag their tongues with the speed of horses of Melkor's dark Presence. Only then had Manwë known, only after three hundred years of stealing away Quendi. Only then had Manwë acted, and quickly. How Arda had shaken with thunder and fire. How the heavens had trembled amid the foul tempest of Melkor's gales!

And so it would be again. Only this time, Angamando would be not defeated as Utumno had. Arda was his more than it had been ever before. He had taken no part in its Singing, but one needed not to Sing in order to corrupt that Sung. And the work of his Brethren was so easy to corrupt, to rend the delicacies of their algorithms into a disassembled, chaotic mess. And he had, darkening and poisoning all that the Valar had made from their Voices, all they had Sung into existence with love and tender care. He had given his essence into all of it, until the wonder of Arda had been no more and all reflected the Night of the Void. Until the molten fires of the mountains ran red with the blood of his own spirit, until plants and creatures and all living things fed on the air of his own breath.

You call yourself the Breath of Arda, Manwë, Melkor thought in disdain. But I am. I am! For the World heeds my call and dances as I will! And I will raise the whole of it against you as my shield and laugh as you bring it to ruin with all the blows you lay upon it!

And this time the Sea would be his. Melkor commanded the World with greater ease than before, and this time the Song of Ulmo would not withstand his might. With the Waters he will drown Eagles' nests and submerge mountain crests. This War would be wreathed in dark splendor, would trodden their old War with its devastating greatness. This War would come and be a war unto its own.

But when? Melkor knew Manwë was aware he waited for him, but how much longer must he wait? How much longer would Manwë close his eyes to the backhands to his face? Sighing, but doing nothing? He defiled his throne, but Manwë still sat upon it. He summoned forth those who escaped the fall of Utumno from their hidings in the deep dales and shadows under the mountains and nether wastelands of Eä, but Manwë allowed it. He speared their Trees and Manwë did nothing. He slew one of their kings, and Manwë did nothing. He enslaved innocent Sindar and put to torment those who defied him, and Manwë did nothing. Before, he had been so quick to act when learning of his sins against the Quendi. But now, he did nothing. No matter all the evils Melkor now wrought with the lives of Eldar of any Kindred, Manwë stood idle. Why? There was no reason for his lack of action. It mattered not if his Brethren indeed had abandoned the Noldor to their folly. His little brother would  _never_  have condoned innocent Sindar to be doomed with the consequence of Noldorin sin. His little brother was too high and mighty, after all, to do something as creative as that. So why did Manwë wait? Why did Manwë not hasten as before to end all the darkness Melkor doomed upon the Living? What waited he for?

Nothing! Melkor seethed. He was naught but a coward! And rightfully so. Even to defeat him last time it had taken fourteen of them. Fourteen! And before that, Melkor would have been victorious and Manwë his if not for that accursed golden Vala. But even when it had taken fourteen of them to cast down the walls of Utumno and make scatter his legions, Manwë had still feared his strength and had commanded he be chained. Melkor glowered. He could still feel the burn of the woven manacles and fetters, the metals welded with spells to a substance of uttermost hardness and brightness and smoothness. And he now wondered what Manwë had done with Angainor at the end of his parole. If he had bid Aulë unmake it. Melkor felt hesitant at the possibility he had not. He had recognized the work of Aulë within the Chain's copper, silver, tin, lead, iron, and gold. But a seventh element had been added, one Melkor had not been familiar with. One that had held the properties of the previous six metals and many of its own, and whose color was bright green or red in varying lights. It had been that seventh alloy Melkor had not been able to break, whatever drivel it was Aulë had forged, but it had been the only reason Angainor had fast bound him.

And Manwë knew it.

" _From all parole I release you, and speak henceforth only of peace between us." And his fair face lit with a smile of absolute joy. "Welcome home, brother."_

No, enough of Manwë! Melkor screeched as he spun away, clutching black hair in tight fists. Darkness, I beseech of you, cast him from me! I see him! I hear him! And he deserves not my attention, no matter the Song's color carried on his tongue. He was faithless, no matter how his Maiar servants went to kiss his feet and from worshipping him find ecstasy. He was faithless! He had no trust in me even when I swallowed his bitter pill. I offered to become a servant to them each and all, promising to reverse all the effects I willed upon the World. I knelt at his feet and he still remitted me back unto that prison! I surrendered, and Manwë still gave Tulkas the Chain to bear behind me!

It made no difference if I was isolated from my agents while there. Darkness had yet prevailed. Darkness was yet with me, and I should have burst out nonetheless into flaming rebellion, that Manwë would remember with clarity what it was to be daunted by my gaze alone! And he will remember, with all diabolical Discords to suffocate him as he does. The vaunted fastness of Valinor…to the Void take it and ruin it! And Manwë with it! Darkness, cast him away! In word and deed he takes from me, running his high mouth while sitting on a throne not his. But even before then, when Eä was yet empty and naught from its Darkness was Sung, even then Manwë was at work against me the moment I was gone.

You betrayed me, Manwë, and for it I will see you smote to ash in flame, by shard of ice, by everlasting cold! You pledged your word. Before the Father you pledged it! I am the greatest power under the Father and you swore to follow me. By the Father's decree, I was the one tasked to devise and begin our labor. And you were bidden to produce and finish that labor I began. But you lied! The moment I went to learn the wonders of the Void, you turned on me and coerced from me the loyalty of our Brethren. Come our emergence into Eä, you pledged to follow me and you lied! So speak not of your love or forgiveness or innocence of evil deeds. You lied!

So why won you the favor, the title, the name? You deserve naught of it, for you turned from me, your brother, your eldest, for shame! And for it you won the Throne? The Regency? You whine of the injustice of my sigaldry, yet I would question otherwise. This War will make plain to all who stands the mightiest Power, who sits on the highest throne, and who will not be controlled or chained by all the Valar combined. For your radiance may outturn a thousand suns, Manwë. But my own defeats a thousand and one! So to the Void with your high tongue, to the Void with your love, and to the Void with your hurt feelings.

Nothing will hide you from me, and nothing will save you from your doom. I care not for the blessed meaning of your name or how the Eldar still bequeath you with it in their foul tongue. For I will take your winds, defame them with my breath; take your ode of Life, and deflower it with one hand. And you, you will weep when I am through. And you, my lord Elder King, will be bestowed a new name of my devising! You may be blessed on the tongues of Eldar and holy in the eyes of the Father. But I am He who arises in Might, and before this War is ended, you will remember it. I will see all of you and your Maiar remember it! I will see them each and all know of how you are no worse than me in your debauchery, for what game think you to play, little brother?

You preach your integrity and pretend I know not the tall tale it is? You believed my evil cured, but still kept me the beggar. You declared me free from the fastness of Mandos, but still remitted me unto that abode to  _meditate_  and  _complete my repentance_. You announced me as one restored his place among the Appointed Dwellers, but still did not abdicate the Throne to the first of the Powers, the very first in the Thought of the Father. Yes, Manwë,  _faithless I name you_ _!_

For you lied, lied then as you had in the Beginning! As much as a lord of woes I am a watcher of foes and I know now you never intended to repent of your own crimes against me, to follow me as you pledged. So why bother releasing me from the Chain? Why bother offering me freedom and a second chance?  _What was your intention!_

_And his fair face lit with a smile of absolute joy. "Welcome home, brother." And before all Manwë kissed him on the brow, embracing him, eyes dancing with a happiness not seen since before their departure from the Timeless Halls, and paying no heed to the sudden tension that made tremble Melkor's body. "Welcome home."_

Melkor felt his knees collapse against the unforgiving stone of the floor as he was benumbed with memory flickering before his Sight. One long abandoned. One of a Flame Imperishable, of an Eternal Embrace. Of dewdrops of diamond and dust of gold. Of singing and dancing with other Holy Ones. Of being gifted a brother whose feet walked upon his own footsteps. Of how they had played together. Sang and laughed and walked with each other. Melkor closed tight his eyes as his body shook under the tension that wracked its frame. And he clenched his fists, sharp nails embedding the palms until skin broke and blood swelled as black as that of his children's.

He hated him. Hated how he himself had been made to sit at his feet. It mattered not how Manwë spoke for him, defending that the secret thoughts of his mind were tributary to the Music's glory. That he was the mightiest offspring of Ilúvatar's Thought and meant for Ilúvatar's Light. That he was an Ainu powerful beyond measure for the future of the world, good or bad. That though he ventured forth unto the outer blackness that Ilúvatar had not yet turned the light of His face unto, only a mesh of Darkness covered his eyes. And as all stains it could be purged.

Melkor snorted, snapping his head up from where it had bowed.

Purged. Purged! To you all things can be  _purged_ _!_  That you think even Darkness is not beyond you to  _purge_ , when it was in the Timeless Void, in  _Darkness_  I grew well learnt of your heart, and you are simply desperate to deny the existence of my greater knowledge. To deny me, who has a share in all the gifts of the Holy Ones! And simply because Darkness is beyond your ken, it is wrong, dearest brother? Ill to grow in it, to learn all the secret fires it kindled? All it proves, brother, is that concerning all the mightiness of the Ancient Void, you can handle none of it. But I can, as is only right. And you are not great enough to declare the Darkness obedient to your engrossment with healing and reordering, for there is no Ancient Darkness less than you! And no Ancient Darkness greater than me!

For over it I claim mastery! And with it my Voice extends further than the measureless reaches you ever thought to hail. But you, Manwë, you deserve all the woes wrought in your name by my hand, by me, a wright of all dark phenomena. For you shut your ear to me. When I offered you teachings as any older brother would, when I presented to each and all of you teachings as any eldest brother should, you turned from me! And I know it is from the wholesome fear that has bent your mind since the Deeps of Time, never mind the high and mighty words that fall from your mouth. How you excuse your cowardice by speaking Darkness to be absent of Love. Yet, pray tell, what would you know of Darkness when you never went to absorb it! For the fabric of the Void gave to me all of everything. Such cold! Such fire. And I told you, Manwë, of the delight to be delivered unto you if you but followed me as you pledged, for the Darkness would have embraced my brother! It would have pulled you as it did me, and you would have savored the taste of its seduction, how it besought to be learned and its dark wonders discovered by us both. And you would not have resisted, as I do not. The Darkness is not meant to be resisted. And no fault lay at my feet if in the Father's Design He let be the Darkness so much stronger than I am!

So pray I have mercy on you, little brother, for turning on me, for turning all of them on me! You all avoided me and began the building of Arda without me! And you, brother, you I granted a second chance, and a third and fourth chance followed after. But you will be mine. All winds will be polluted, every tree hewn and every beast beset with malady and every harvest with famine! I will not rest, not until the World burns with molten fire and the fabrics of Eä are rent from Song to Song and all your musics sound as horrid as a shrieking fiend. I will not rest until you are mine! And when I have you, Manwë, when you are mine….

In a flurry Melkor rose from the ground and moved swiftly about the cavernous Hall, and his passage sent the fires of torches dancing violently, some doused and some intensifying wildly. And in response to him, a cruel tremble rippled out from the Nethermost Hall and made quake all mountains and made crumble many precipices. Melkor cast up his eyes and saw not the ribbed ceiling of his throne room, but saw beyond to the writhing and scintillating folds of the Void. And a great ache tore at his heart. Badly, so badly did he wish to return to it. And he would take Manwë with him!

"Darkness!" he bellowed, heedless of the ears he sent hurting. "When at last I cast him to you, let him taste the colds and fires of all hells! Cast him from me and let him be never near me! I cannot take it. I will not. He would embrace me, declare forgiveness, but then stick his golden pet on me! Thinks he I knew not he was empty of faith? I know all and know well the heart of my brother! It matters not how softly Manwë spoke his words or how patient he acted or hopeful he looked or endeared he smiled or saddened he watched.  _I know him!_ "

Melkor spun on his heel and looked unto the West, and through rock and mountain and his Voice went thundering. "You proclaim to want me returned, Manwë? Fine. Take first my spit in your hand and kiss it after the seat of my throne. For you would command no less from me. Had done no less before. For had you not my face to your feet when ordering from me all abasement and emendation? You are no less black in the heart than I!"

Melkor fell silent, panting at the raging fire that was flowing through his blood.

_And before all Manwë kissed him on the brow, embracing him, eyes dancing with a happiness not seen since before their departure from the Timeless Halls, and paying no heed to the sudden tension that made tremble Melkor's body. "Welcome home." Quieter he spoke, "Glad I am you are healed and returned to me, and that Father gifts to you His open arms." And he tightened his hold, the deep intimacy of his spirit assaulting Melkor as it had not done since their Youth. And he whispered in his ear for only him to hear, "I have missed you."_

Melkor shook, blinking rapidly, and he hissed at the sudden gust of air that circled him. And on an impulse Melkor reached up and took the Iron Crown from his brow, looking down at it as it sat in his hands, at the Silmarils enmeshed in its three claws. And as he did every day, Melkor stared at the Gems, brighter than the polluted vessel of Laurelin and brighter than the satellite Tilion steered. But Melkor saw deep within the Silmarils and there caught sight and sound of a Light that burned him from within and a unique Music that was all too familiar. A Light found in  _his_  face, a Music that boomed in  _his_  Voice. Deep within the revolving rays of light shot from the Jewels Melkor saw him. Caught there, the memory of his Song immortalized as much as Fëanáro did the Mingling of the Trees. He saw him.

Melkor collapsed to his knees, foulest Crown beset with brightest Jewels falling from nerveless fingers and clattering with an echo along the iron-veined floor of stone. He swayed back and forth, his hands going to his head and tearing at the coarse hair. And his breath hitched.

"I hate you." The whimper was strained and broken, and Melkor closed his eyes tight as he wept, and he felt his heart be gnawed away at. And once more, the burning of his black hand was outdone by a greater torment.

O = O = O

Time passed as it had in the Days before Days, a day being alike to a hundred years and a thousand years spanning the time of one breath. But Melkor stirred himself from where he laid, the fog receding from his mind as he forced back the blackness of his face. He looked suddenly to the mouth of the Nethermost Hall and through the heavy doors sealed shut. He felt the stirring of heat and sensed the approaching presence of several servants, Fankil and Lungorthin among them. And caught within the wave of servants or Orcs heading downward through the labyrinth was the single fëa whose fire was currently flaming far too brightly.

Nelyafinwë was coming and it was time yet again to make this dungeon ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lungorthin: a lord of the Balrogs who took part in the tormenting of Húrin, from Canto I of the lay's second version (HoME The Lay of the Children of Húrin III.117). That he took part in the imprisonment of Maedhros is my own invention.
> 
> Telimektar: a Maia of Tulkas (HoME The History of Eriol or Ælfwine II.285) In the story Melkor wonders if Telimektar had ever recovered from his battle with Sauron. But Tolkien writes that Telimektar was one of the leading Maiar sent to repel the attack Melkor launched on Tilion in the beginning of the First Age (which has not yet happened in this story-canon), in which they were victorious. So, obviously outside of Melkor's knowledge, he did recover.
> 
> Thangorodrim "two leagues tall": the precipice above the Great Gate stood at a height over one-third of that of our tallest modern building. But the central peak of Thangorodrim must have been at least five miles in diameter and some 35,000 feet high (Thangorodrim and Angband Atlas.22)
> 
> Angainor: crafted by the welding of six earthly metals (copper, silver, tin, lead, iron, and gold). But the seventh element Aulë used was called tilkal (an acronym for the other six metals). It could not be broken, and only Aulë alone could forge it. But of tilkal Aulë had only enough to add more than a little to each link of Angainor. (HoME The Chaining of Melko I.106-7)
> 
> Manwë's name: Manwë's Eru-given name Manawenuz is composed of the Valarin element for "blessed, holy". Manawenuz as a whole translates to "Blessed One, One (closest) in accord with Eru". Melkor's name translates to "He who arises in Might", the oldest form in Quenya being Mbelekoro. But the Valarin rendition of his name is not provided. (HoME Quendi and Eldar Appendix D XI.399.402)
> 
> Manwë's pledge: Melkor was the greatest power under Eru, far more powerful in original form, and Manwë a little less great. As Melkor reflected in the story, Manwë actually was tasked by Ilúvatar to follow Melkor in improving, carrying out, or completing whatever Melkor made/devised/began. Only Melkor blew it by entering into the Timeless Void. He could have been, and would have been Master of all that was done, and there had been many Ainur of the Song willing to follow him and serve him, if he called. But he blew it. (HoME Myths Transformed X.379.390)


	7. And Be Burned

"The eldest [Maedhros], whose ardour yet more eager burnt than his father's flame, than Fëanor's wrath; him fate awaited with fell purpose."  
~ J.R.R. Tolkien,  _The Lays of Beleriand_

**Chapter 7**

The chains they left behind in his vault but still tightly bound his hands behind his back. Maitimo grew ill as his surroundings passed by in a blur. He worked to stand and walk of his own volition, but his feet felt to erupt with fire upon each brushing against the course ground. But Fankil and the others bracing him upright slowed not their pace, dragging him onward when he slowed and wrenching him upward when he stumbled. But now he grew faulty of foot again, nigh collapsing to his knees, and a cry ripped from his throat, for his feet felt like they were pierced with nails when walking on the lacerations originally delivered to prevent any walking at all. His arms felt to be nearly ripped from their sockets as his overseers violently forced him upright once more, and Maitimo nearly heaved come the faintness from all the wounds flaring anew.

He forced his eyes open but could see little. Beasts of a countless number encircled him, their growls and granite cackling echoing on the walls, and he could feel the singeing heat of the Balrog in his wake, its diabolical glow the sole luminosity for their march. But Maitimo knew where they headed and his hearted pounded with the knowledge. They went down. They marched him downward, and only one fell fate existed at the bottom of this descent. There was only one place to go.

For they passed no Elves in toil and labor, for though the thrall vaults lay deep beneath the smithies they slaved at, Maitimo's own prison lay even deeper. And he still could make no sense of their direction as he was led and hustled along the labyrinthine tunnels and dungeons, the pits and stairs, marked at every turn by shapes like carven trolls and the entombed silence savagely broken by his escort of Orcs. Left, right, stumbling on uneven stairs, they went ever downward, utter blackness before him and red of living fire behind him.

Until in the consuming darkness, Maitimo could see amid his dazed vision the grinning portals of the Nethermost Hall, and his chest seized up as he was shoved with vigor through its cavernous mouth.

The room was not empty. It was lit by fire, and Maitimo was struck anew by the familiar sight of the beastly crowd that gathered, countless in number and filling the chamber along every wall. Everywhere. Monstrous creatures stood and lay everywhere. Throng on throng of Orcs, Úmaiar clad as beasts he could not name, spirits of flame lesser in size and might than Lungorthin behind him, canine and feline animals all savage and cruel. They were everywhere, yipping and yowling and growling, and Maitimo fought to breathe as his fëa was overwhelmed by the suffocating Darkness that assaulted him with no warning, his breath literally robbed at the cold and terrible evil made manifest in the cavern. He gasped desperately.

_Smack!_

Maitimo collapsed to his knees as a spear shaft came from behind and swept them from under him, and his inoperable knee felt to break three times over at the impact. Waves of agony washed over him, but after subsiding he paid no heed to the thought of even rising. He knew the deed was done to humiliate, but really…he was off his feet. The tendons felt to split in his knees and his body screamed at the trembling that wracked it, but he was off his feet. So many a time before had he fought, burned with indignation at the debasement of being forced to his knees, but he cared not. He would rather spit in the face of such naysaying than be made to stand and bear his own weight. He would but collapse and suffer the further torment for falling. Maitimo bowed his head, hair of soiled and shorn locks falling to curtain his face, breaths audibly ragged and face contorted in raw agony as he fought to overcome the onslaughts of pain that would just not go away. He could faintly register the vicious laughter of the Orcs at his reaction, hear the beasts roar in a speech black and heathen to the ears, but he felt the heat of blood trickling from his mouth and ignored them.

That was, until he felt the razor point of a spearhead at his throat. Maitimo went still, a hushed silence falling in the Hall, and a bead of blood dribbled down his neck as the broad iron blade sliced into the skin just under his jaw, bidding him to lift his head. Knowing already what sight would meet his eyes, he did.

Moringotto stood before him, but he was not alone. An Elf was poised in front of him, his back to the Vala's chest, and Moringotto held him immobile by a vicious hand to the mussed hair and the other clasping his throat, the thrall's own hands clawing at the Dark Foe's arm to lessen the pressure. And all the while looking at Maitimo, the Vala whispered to the Elf, his lips brushing his ear.

Maitimo's brow furrowed at the sight, his throat closing up.

By his blistered and bloodied hands, the captive Elf was a thrall tasked to mine iron ore deep in the pit and he looked as forlorn and oppressed as all thralls were, his body beneath the tattered garb marked with abuse and eyes alight with a despairing and dying hope. But the Elf right now had a look of terror on his fair face. Maitimo could only fathom how he would feel in not knowing why he was there before all these evil entities fey and ruthless, and why the Dark Lord's focus was on him when he had undoubtedly been doing nothing but slaving way, head low in contrition in effort to avoid the flailing scourge. So strong was his terror that it manifested in the harsh trembling along his body, and he looked more panicked at the Dark Lord's whispers, more confused; he knew nothing of what was to happen or why.

But Maitimo did.

He knew what Moringotto said in the Elf's ear, knew the words too well. And when the Elf suddenly turned a look of shock on Maitimo, one revealing a very sudden, very real panic and dismay, Maitimo looked on with deadened eyes. Even when the Elf let out a despairing wail in his native tongue that carried all woe to be had in response to what Moringotto said, Maitimo looked on, eyes desolate and empty.

Moringotto ended his words in that soft and muted language, however much his eyes remained trained on Maitimo, and a grin twisted his mouth. Even as the Elf desperately began to fight the hold the Vala restrained him with, now knowing his fate, Moringotto gripped the fair being's neck with the fell claws of his fingers and, in one firm swipe, he slit the Elf's throat, the nails piercing so deep he almost ripped it out entirely. Blood spurted far and gushed heavily from the gaping slashes, and Orcs jeered as the Elf fell limp to the ground. Eyes open, throat disfigured with cavities and blood pooling around him, he was still.

And Maitimo looked on. He stared at the Elf strewn haphazardly at the Dark Lord's feet. Still, limp, blue eyes empty. And he stared.

The Dark Lord huffed. "One more Elf now in death to hate you," he crowed to the Noldo. And he looked to his right unto a crowd of servants, nodding to Tevildo at the back and gesturing loftily to the dead Elf as he walked away. "For your thanes!"

The mass of felines sounded out a baying of approval as the fell beast descended from his perch, cords of muscle rippling beneath his fur. The mighty cat leapt forward with a growl, jaws and savage fangs clamping down on the Elf's ankle. With a jerk, Tevildo dragged the corpse around Maitimo and out through the mouth of the Hall, a trail of blood left behind, and his felines and not a few canines eagerly followed.

Maitimo knelt unmoving and Moringotto looked at him with a faint smile. "One might have thought your lesson to have long ago been taught," he spoke with a sigh. He absently flicked his fingers, flecks of blood speckling the iron-veined floor. With slow steps he paced the Hall to his throne, daunting gaze never leaving the Noldo. "Taught and heeded, yet still you persist."

Maitimo finally lifted his eyes, and their grey irises swarmed with a fierce light, though clouded over with a deathly pallor. Awareness returned and he looked around, though only fleetingly. The Nethermost Hall could only be described as an evilly dark wonder. Vast and cavernous, the chamber was lit with flaming braziers and full of wizardry that singed the air, and strange shapes moved with feverish movement in and out. The many pillars that upheld the lofty roof were ghastly carven and towered like trees with boughs like serpents. But snakes of great size curled and uncurled without rest about the pillars, and the Hall was filled with instruments of death and torment. And Orcs. Always Orcs.

And beneath a monstrous column loomed the throne that the Vala now sat upon.

The Lord of Angamando watched him, his wet, bloodied hand vibrant against the obsidian darkness of the throne. Maitimo remained quiet while looking at that evil face. But, as every time before, his eyes flitted upward to what lay nestled in those hideous iron claws, and it was difficult to look away.

The Silmarils blazed with a white and hidden fire, for self-luminous and living light kindled clear even in that Hall vast and drear. Maitimo felt his heart swell with emotion too raw and fierce as he beheld the fire of his father, immortalized as its own light, shine from those three Gems like marvelous stars at night. And though he had long ceased to wonder, it remained a marvel to him that these Jewels ever waxing the brightest sheen never burned his eyes like the smallest lick of fire did, as the lit braziers of the Hall now did. No pain. But the glance to his father's mastery was fleeting indeed, and he forced his eyes away before Moringotto could make damning fuel from it.

The Vala tilted his head, a terrible light in his eye. "How many now makes that Elf?" he questioned mildly. "Many assuredly, as you must care little for your fellow Elves in my vaults. But what new number tallied he?"

Maitimo was silent.

Moringotto lifted an eyebrow. "Speak. Your voice is able now," he said, giving a more deliberate flick of his bloodied hand, and the Noldo's eyes were drawn to the further speckles of blood falling from it.

But Maitimo did not speak, though not out of insolence. Really, he knew his voice was indeed able, for as bidden by the Bright One Fankil had restored the cords of his voice just enough to speak, just as he had enabled the lessening of the crippling wounds so he could barely stand, just as he had stopped the internal bleeding that had come during the Bright One's visit. Nowhere near ample, but just enough to be dragged here. And Maitimo knew he could speak, but just as greatly as he also knew the fire that would scorch his throat when he did.

The silence went on and Moringotto scowled. "Ready an Elf!" he barked to the restless throng of servants.

"No!" Maitimo yelled without delay, and as foreknown, his throat tore open all over again with the cry. But not that threat. Not another one.

Moringotto visibly subsided. "Then answer. How many now is it?" Further silence followed, and his dark voice deepened to a very real warning. "Do as I bid, O mighty Noldóran."

Maitimo gave a weary shake of his head, afterimages swimming before his sight of all the Elves he had witnessed be killed in the same manner.

Moringotto snorted. "Lost count, have you? A shame, truly, that not even those Elves' reason for their deaths would remember the number he fated to die, knowing well that death would be their end." Maitimo watched mutely, eyes growing more dazed and dark the further Moringotto spoke. And so he spoke on, mocking and vile. "I would tell you the name of that Elf whose blood shines bright alongside you. After all, putting to memory the names of those whose deaths you are to blame is a courtesy you never granted to that boat haven of Lindar. But," he digressed, "like you, I simply have no care to. The thanes devour him even now, so let him be forgotten, no?"

Further silence, but the Dark Lord narrowed his eyes at the sight of Maitimo beginning to sway, his body wracking with trembles and eyes distant with pain. The menace in his voice grew. "Do not dare turn your eyes from me, Noldo."

Fankil approached Maitimo and grabbed a fistful of his hair, yanking back with a vicious pull until Maitimo's eyes were upturned and trained once more on Moringotto. He gasped at the vice to his scalp and could not move, even if he sought to. Orcs tittered and savored the sight, but Moringotto spoke over their noise.

"Know you well I grant only three pardons," he reminded. "You will listen and you will speak, or else it shall be a score of thralls made ready. Heed you my words?"

It was a final warning, and the very terrible darkness in his face commanded obedience, but Maitimo was already weary. With no curtain of hair to hide behind, his face was made plain, the blood and filth old and new that stained it and the welts that colored it. And the skin beneath was sick with a pallor more appropriate for the dead or dying.

But, Melkor discerned, something different was made far more manifest than the misery the Elf endured. And Melkor saw it and hated what he saw. Nelyafinwë may be crippled by his broken body, but that fëa he had bid Mairon annihilate now fanned bright as it never had before, emitting a wild light fueled by an ardor that burned even more fiercely than had the fire of Fëanáro in all his righteous wrath. Melkor wondered at it, confounded as to how it could be possible. Nelyafinwë looked upon him not with defiance, but…something else. Something he could not name. He hated it and committed to beating that out of the Noldo as well.

He waited until the Firstborn's eyes were focused, as well as they could be at least, and shook his head. "You are determined to not fail, are you not? To not let another thrall be sentenced to the cold slade of death? You failed today already, but truly, why care you at all for them? For thralls not your kin and speaking a tongue nigh unknown to your ears? After all, they are but an extension of those you slew at Alqualondë, and the deed speaks for itself in how little a part they had in your heart. So why waste away concern for Moriquendi when you offered not even a morsel of it to the Lindar?" He waited. "Speak."

Nelyafinwë's face was empty of any thought, though his eyes swarmed with something dark. "I have nothing to say." He grimaced with the words, the sound of his voice coarse and broken from a throat shredded too many times from abuse. Melkor marked it as a fine ignominy of all that was an Elven voice.

He scoffed. "Mark the day a Noldo has naught to say. Mayhap my Orcs should feel honored they were slain by the same sword that spilled Elven blood on the pearlescent strands of an Elven shore. Perchance when you come again to my throne, you will drink the blood of the next thrall slain. My children speak often of how savory and sweet is its taste."

Nelyafinwë visibly grew ill at the very proposal, his body lined with repulsion and horror, and Melkor smirked, delighting in the sight. "Enough of this." And in a manifestation of his mood, the very air and illumination of the Nethermost Hall grew more dark and drear. Melkor lifted an eyebrow. "Never answered you the query of my servant. What shall it take to show you in full the folly of whatever vain hope sustains you? Why persist you so strongly against my will?"

Nelyafinwë provided no answer, but Melkor caught sight of a vague sentiment in his grey, exhausted eyes that came and went all too swiftly. "Ah, you do not know, do you?"

Though he maintained the eye contact as unwavering as he may, Nelyafinwë remained silent.

Melkor felt a glimmer of impatience and the chamber grew darker. "This is it, Your Majesty. My patience with you grows thin."

"So kill me," he grunted, the words delivered listlessly.

"And you would love that, would you not?" Melkor huffed in amusement. "Greatly do I find it comical how you Firstborn believe to know what is always best. You want to die, but have I not granted you long ago such a delight? You kneel there bound and desirous of death when already you have it, despite your body living on. After all, life without living is naught but death without dying. And you live such a death well, I must say." He once more flicked his hand, but the blood had started to harden and no specks flew from it. But he raised it nonetheless and gestured to his brow and the crown that adorned it. "Want you to reclaim these three Jewels fair and bright or not?"

Nelyafinwë's eyes flew immediately to the treasures mightiest of his House, and the distrait longing could easily be seen in his face, whether he willed it so or no. It was a silent gaze both sad and sincere, and Melkor felt his rage boil at seeing the glimpse of such wholesome purity, especially in the face of a slayer of kin. No one of such an evil deed could still be so selfless in a desire, for surely the Oath would have rendered such a yearning corrupt after so many years. But Melkor stayed himself from his yearning to replace that open gaze with one of misery. Nelyafinwë spoke no answer, but verily, the look upon his face, floodlit by the very Gems he ogled, was answer enough.

"Upon the bending of your knee you shall thereupon walk free, taking with you not one Jewel or two, but all three," he recited slowly and meaningfully. "So spoke my servant, and yet unbending you remain? Why be you so unwise when it is so simple a deed to take hold of what you vowed to reclaim?"

Nelyafinwë shook his head, grimacing at Fankil's violent fist. "You will not give them."

"Again you dub me a teller of lies?" Melkor chuckled. "Pray tell disassemble this one to prove my words false."

"I –" Nelyafinwë coughed heavily and spent a moment long and painful to recover from it, wheezing away. He struggled to stay upright as he glared at Melkor, pushing the words past dry lips. "I need not to dismantle your lies when I know them to be lies in truth."

"This again?" Melkor grumbled. "The ever-circling enigma of lie and truth? Need I recite to your addled mind again my foretellings that blossomed in full, such as the secret of Men?" Silence. "Well?" he drawled.

But Nelyafinwë spoke no response, his eyes growing distant with thoughts Melkor could little discern. He narrowed his eyes, curious that an Elf once so fiercely defiant now remained so eerily silent. Before so bold, but now so meek. "Why devote you no effort to defend yourself?"

Nelyafinwë raised a skeptical eyebrow, a hint of derision in his eyes. "In seeking such answers you have no sincerity, and I would rather walk in silence aplenty than be played as a puppet."

Melkor scowled. Forget a lack of boldness. "Ready an Elf!"

"No!" he again cried, and any derision was swiftly and wholly replaced with defeat. He bowed his head, but raised his eyes to Melkor, and in them burned such hate that the hopelessness mixed with it was seen only just. "I will speak," he conceded, a whole world of loathing in the raspy voice.

Melkor held up a hand to bid halt to those Orcs and Boldogs that had shifted to fulfill his order, and the Hall went still once more. "Good. Then answer me this: I will sanction any desire, so why resist that I offered you so simple and free? I have done naught against you to warrant such obstinacy."

Within a breath Nelyafinwë's expression had morphed into one of incredulity at such a claim, and he stared at Melkor, agog and aghast and appalled. "You killed my grandfather!" His voice cracked on the adamant shout and it had to be painful, but so great was his fury that he seemed to care little.

But Melkor smiled in the face of such wrath, a delighted gleam entering his eye. "I slew the great Finwë? What say you to the fact I went to save him, not slay him?" The smile grew at the look the claim put on the Noldo's face. He nodded. "You were all fleeing and saw naught of what occurred. My Ungweliantë was insatiable to devour the treasures of your hoard, but Finwë stood before the shut doors. On these thither lands you saw not a remnant of her silken web, for upon arrival in my demesne, I summoned awake my spirits of flame and bid they slay her or make her flee back over glacial kame. At my displeasure she quailed in terror and turned to flight, and my servants pursued her with whips of flame. And she fled into the night. And now she is here no more, as my Balrogs made assured."

The room erupted in a sudden spasm of light as Lungorthin in the rear unleashed a cloud of fire, and Nelyafinwë hunched over as the heat seared his skin. But the deep, nefarious laugh of the Balrog rumbled in the Hall, the sound rough as rocks cascading, and all there knew the beast was pleasured by the memory of the tale.

Melkor smiled, recalling how vicious Lungorthin had been in the hunt. He looked back to Nelyafinwë. "See you now? As attested behind you, my account of events is true."

Nelyafinwë did not speak, but Melkor could see the uncertainty in his eyes, made greater by Lungorthin's sudden vigorous agreement. He knew the Noldo remembered all the other treasures lost and stolen with the Silmarils, the Darkness that thoroughly blinded them, and that though his grandfather had lain slain before the doors blackened and wrecked, he had never truly seen the happening of their King's death.

Melkor cast to him a questioning look. "Why would I desire to smite your father's sire? He gave me no reason, so I did not."

Nelyafinwë shook his head dismissively, grimacing in pain as he clenched his jaw. "You lie again."

"I speak no lie and seldom have I. This you know," he snarled. "Was it a lie I spoke when foretold I to your father that the Valar would bid he break the Silmarils? Was it a lie that Ñolofinwë would sit upon the throne if granted the chance? Was it a lie that my Brethren lured you from Cuiviénen unto their own nest? Was it a lie that from Valinor you could fly free and the Valar could do naught to stay your feet? That time was a harvest of Truth if there ever was one. So, O wise king, when had I ever lied?"

But Nelyafinwë already was shaking his head, his eyes disgusted. "What work you to convince me of when by your lies you turned the whole of the city against my father?"

Melkor chuckled, reclining in his throne. "That was a masterpiece. For you see, my fellow king, you love so much to boast to me the potency of your father's tongue, yet not even he could disassemble the delectable fruit of my toil, no more than any can invert the chronicles of Time to undo that done. Fëanáro revealed to be so poorly learnt in what it was to be an artisan of true might and mastery. But just as the mold of his fate was bent from my will, so now also is yours." He leaned forward, his voice sickeningly sweet. "Recall you the promise I made you long ago, royal thrall? Even if from these dungeons deep you achieved to flee, you will go not without my taint on your heart. And more cancerous shall the growth of the taint be the longer you stay from yielding and bowing to me."

Nelyafinwë met his foreboding gaze, forlorn but steady. "Then you will have to kill me, for before ever that day comes I will live in death to suffer the Everlasting Dark."

Melkor almost rolled his eyes. "Aye and aye and yea. More salvaged and resaid is that speech than the thralls' wailing for reprieve. Have you nothing new to vie with me?"

Nelyafinwë looked a complicated assortment of pained and dismayed and revolted. "I vie for nothing. You may shred from my body my skin and leave my bones shattered, but if believe you truly I would bow to what you have shown me here –"

"Greater is that I left unshown," Melkor interjected knowingly. "Really, Noldo, must I deliver delicate words coated in honey unto your sensitive ears?" In a movement silent and swift he stood from his throne and approached, a wake of darkness wreathing him as he looked down at the Elf on his knees. And in a voice of doom he said clearly and deliberately: "Ñolofinwë and his host came not, having turned from the sight of fatal ice and glacial air, and even now heed to the whim of Valarin mercy in that Land wholly darkened. And you can only fathom what toil they be bidden to undertake for the amends they must make. Your kin come not for you. Makalaurë and your brother princes I long ago chased away south with my clouds of vapors and poisonous fumes, and now in new lands they make merry with new lives to live and be consumed with. Your brothers come not for you." Melkor lifted an eyebrow, an acerbic and evilly amused smile touching his mouth. "And need I speak of my Brethren? They, whom against you rebelled? They, whom you waved away with a conceited hand? They, whom even if they sought you would fail? For is it not they, numbering fourteen, who could never defeat me, numbering one? They, who war with me ever in reluctance and with no hope of real victory? My spirit and will runs in the World deep and potent, in the veins of mighty mountains and in the ravines of rushing waters." Melkor shook his head, appearing amazed at the folly. "Only now do the Valar begin to see that I won come the moment they freed me. In all, the Valar pay you not even a second thought. They come not even for innocent Moriquendi enslaved to the forges and pits, so why would they for Elf who spat in their face?"

Nelyafinwë was once more silent, but this time Melkor saw within him the desolation such words were intended to stir. He saw the growing despair that ate at him, the settling of his damning words in his mind where they might stay and fester. Nelyafinwë did not respond, did not even move. Melkor knelt down in front him, his presence overwhelming and causing the Noldo to already struggle to breathe.

Fankil released his hold on the copper hair and retreated as Melkor leaned close, staring deep into Nelyafinwë's eyes until he trembled from the invasion. And Melkor broke not the gaze as he spoke in dark promise: "Your stay here will be fulfilled. And you will dread me with a binding terror. This sooth I shall hold over every Noldo of your host, that I shall seem ever nigh them even should they far from the Hells of Iron be, and their hearts will quake and they will flee not even when they can. It shall be a bottomless dread, for though you and your people may be swift of foot and surpassing fair, sad will their sweet mouths sing and their eyes with tears quivering."

Melkor tilted his head. "Know you why I have not yet killed you? Because the day will come when I parade you before your people. And they shall behold the sight of their King of a scant and to-be-forgotten folk kneeling before me, and your brothers after you and all those whose fealties to you are true. So left in desolate and ruin shall you be, that even if all Elves gathered and marched hither to your rescue and conquered this unconquerable Mountain, you would still desire death even then."

Melkor paused to let the dark words soil the air, and the silence that smothered the Hall, even by his servants and children, was alike to that of a tomb.

Nelyafinwë's face was unreadable, however deathly still he was in body.

Melkor watched him, delighting in the reaction. He lifted his blackened hand to his Iron Crown, though wary not to brush the planes of the Jewels. He watched as Nelyafinwë's eyes followed the gesture. "Was it worth it?" he asked in a tone both scathing and honeyed. "You claim you shall yield never to Darkness, but how tasted your Oath on your tongue when you vowed words as dark as the Darkness you loathe? Was that sole moment of glory wholesome and great worth the bitter fruit of your new fate?" The Dark Lord's voice grew in strength, the sarcasm strong and mockery clear. "After all," he crowed, "behold the sight before me! The King of Noldor, deep in gen, adorned with no crown and entombed in rock. Weak and flightless as a newborn chick, naked on his knees, decked with stripes of pain, and bound always in the damning links of his chains. If only the righteous Noldor might see their King now!"

Nelyafinwë did not lowered his eyes. "Just as the Valar saw the face of their Eldest forced down at Manwë's feet?"

Melkor was rendered silent, and he stared at the Noldo in crazed disbelief. The shock of such a mockery lit the wick of his temper quickly and hotly, and Melkor burned with black rage at the memory conjured by the words. Such insolence….Such  _insolence!_  For a long time that caliber of impudence had not been voiced, and Melkor had long believed it to have been beaten from Nelyafinwë wholly and completely. He already put to thought new methods and use of devices to see it done anew.

The Nethermost Hall had fallen still with an astonished silence, and many an Orc cowered and went to crawl away as they awaited the impending wrath of their Master. And Melkor's eyes indeed seemed to light with a fire as he stood, his harsh breaths echoing along the cavernous walls. "I was not the only being in that Ring of Thrones to be shamed, or forget you your father's own humiliation before all his kin?"

"My father said –"

"Your father is dead!" The strike to Nelyafinwë's face echoed in the Hall, stronger than the fist of an Orc and more fell than the claws of the canines. Blood splattered harshly as more flooded the Elf's mouth, and Nelyafinwë nearly toppled over with a cry from the impact. "Smothered by death in full and his words with him."

Nelyafinwë worked himself upright back to his knees, and it was no easy task with his hands bound at his back. He visibly shook at the agony undoubtedly coursing through his body, his face not the least. He spat out globs of blood and dazedly looked at Melkor with a brief, mirthless leer. His teeth were no longer flawless, no longer white, but crusted with old filth and blood gone dry and the sheen of the new blood. But he forced out the words even so. "Your hate is no decree, for his words live on if solely in me."

"Aye," Melkor chortled in disgust, "they live on manifested in the fulfillment of your desolation and broken body. How grateful to him you must be! So let his foul mouth die as the swiving pomposity it was, for only I now can free you of the fell fate he wrought for you."

Nelyafinwë gave a brittle laugh, one touched with insanity. "I will boom every word of my father till my death and in death kiss the feet of Manwë ere ever I give allegiance unto a foe as black as his heart!"

Melkor moved like a wraith and in a heartbeat had Nelyafinwë's face tight in his bloodied hand. A pain expression touched the Elf's visage and Melkor squeezed his tender jaw until the expression grew into a full grimace. With no utterance of words Melkor leaned forward and breathed long and steady upon Nelyafinwë's eyes, and withdrew.

For Nelyafinwë then beheld before him a familiar sight; Melkor as he had walked in Valinor. And the vision was breathtaking, a form coeval with that of Manwë and wreathed in a brilliance more bright and potent than the Silmarils combined. Fairer in face than Manwë himself and sheerer in beauty than even the Trees, in power and majesty he shown greater than any other of the Valar and was a vision painful for Elven eyes to endure. For it looked to shadow even the Silmarils bejeweling his brow.

Melkor stared at him in scathing challenge. "How black am I, spoke you?" he seethed, even as the vision faded to return unto his form dark and terrible. "Or forget you so swiftly how you all looked in awe upon my form in Aman? Of the praise that reached far of how lesser in greatness even Manwë looked at my side?" He cocked his head. "What say you to that?"

"I say you cannot thunder with a voice like his," Nelyafinwë rasped without a pause. "And I would first seek death's embrace before I endure to see the majesty of Manwë bow to you."

Melkor's face grew black and wrathful, and he felt the ire grow consuming and smothering within. He looked at Nelyafinwë, shaking with rage and a hate so potent the air about him shifted and stirred, and he readied a strike that would render the insolent creature before him dead in truth. But before he lifted his hand to deliver the blow, Melkor stilled.

He narrowed his eyes in sudden suspicion.

For looking deep into the Incarnate, Melkor realized an anomaly in that vocal display of Nelyafinwë. Aye, such defiant words were as raw and riling as those of Fëanáro himself. But though he spoke shorn of any hesitation or fright perceivable, though his fëa shone from his battered body excessively bright and terrible, though his ruined voice grated out all the anger and resentment and loathing better suited for an apostle of Darkness…though all fueled on the brazenness he voiced, Nelyafinwë's eyes were empty. Empty of the defiance he had long ago broken the Elf of, empty of any pride he had long shredded and torn asunder…just empty. Nelyafinwë spoke words bold and rebellious, but his eyes did not mirror the passion of them at all, as though he were too worn to see his daring proclamations whetted by the fire of his fëa. His eyes were just empty when they should have shone with the fervor and intensity of his words alone. And Melkor understood.

Nelyafinwë sought to madden him enough that, in a crazed fury, he might smite the creature here and now.

What a swine.

The Elf was more cunning than he perceived, Melkor thought. But he reluctantly doused the inferno within, reacting not to how the mere mention of Manwë made him burn. He would not grant the pest such satisfaction.

Looking into waiting eyes he gave a dark smile. "The sight of Manwë kneeling to me you will see, and I would fain keep you and all worshippers of my brother alive to have the sight burned to your memories. His day draws nigh, for many Ainur of the Song have followed me and serve me at my call. In the Days far gone before Time was weaved, I the Potent had claimed many a Maia not of my People. From Aulë, from Oromë, from Vairë and Varda. From others too they hailed and cleaved unto me and would never flee lest their Existence be ruined. This they know well. For unlike you and all Amaneldi ensnared by the Valar's mesh, they grew learnt from my revelations of the fickle thing light is. In that though light may ward off the darkness, it is but an illusion in truth, for the lesser brightness that stands before the greater becomes a darkness." His face morphed into one of delight. "This Manwë will be made to admit, made to see, and he shall end his self-deception and come to me. All you Elves shall, for were you not the lesser brightness and thereupon dark when standing beneath the Light of the Two Trees? Just as Manwë is shadowed by my glory. Just as your father's flame, of all Elvenkind most fierce and bright, was smote and made pitiful by a greater might. And now look at yourself, Your Majesty," he taunted. "A thrall made from the mold of kings and at my feet kneeling with no strength to rise." He paused to let the indignity fester. "So proud your father would be."

Another bout of silence resounded, but Nelyafinwë's face was a subtle morphing of many emotions, flitting too quickly to discern and growing darker upon each shift. He stared at Melkor, no new crafty words of insolence on his lips. Moringotto again kneeled close before him, dark eyes shimmering with all the smothering wonders beyond the Folds of Eä, all the molds and secret fires found only in that Eru-less place.

And he lifted an inquisitive eyebrow. "Tell me, dear king. How sounded his scream, his wail? How felt it knowing upon your ride to Valmar that you would be first to speak to him of Finwë's death? How felt it having to stand there, looking into eyes you knew so well, and knowing your impending words would be to him a death knell? Felt you to die a little inside come every minute change that transformed your father's fair face in that moment? Knowing your sire was breaking because of words delivered from your own lips? How felt it knowing in full that the Valar left  _you_  the burden of the telling how Finwë died and that it would also cut your father as a scythe? How felt it after the telling, to stand there unknowing of what to say?"

He grew elated at the bleak response it was conjuring in Nelyafinwë's face. "How felt it upon Losgar to watch burning ships, to look across the sea and know you left there your abandoned Findekáno? How feels it to wonder what he must think of you now? How felt it to thrust your blade into the first Linda you slayed? Was it difficult to pull free, the sound of the flesh sickly and sweet? How felt it to watch your father drown in madness, knowing you could do naught to stop it? How felt it to watch it consume him? How felt it watching the light fade from his eyes? How felt it watching him as he died? How felt it being able to do naught but watch?

"For now, esteemed Nelyafinwë," he viciously crowed, "you may fathom wholly and freely all the hate and depth of bitterness in Eldamar left in Fëanáro's wake for him." Melkor huffed. "If only he might be alive to taste it, for sorely did he deserve it."

Nelyafinwë's face had morphed drastically amid his speech, such sharp and severe emotion ranging from bleak and wretched to despairing anger and devastating remorse. But all the extreme sentiments coalesced into a pure expression of incredulity, too raw to conceal, and Nelyafinwë stared at him, distressed and in crazed disbelief. He shook his head without thought, brow furrowed and eyes baffled. "What had he done to you?" he finally rasped, his throat so spent the words were nigh inaudible. "What did he do? Why have you such hate for my father?"

Melkor scowled at him, unimpressed, and he leaned close. "Because he deserves it," he sneered. "Nowhere deserved he a place in the Themes, and that he was given their highest pedestal is a disgrace! By all nether wastelands of Eä, if I had foreknown the mere shell of his existence, a fell melody in the Song for him would have been weaved." And none ever shall slam a door in his face again. "And verily, why not? All others had."

Nelyafinwë shook his head, brow furrowing. "Not true."

"No?" Melkor crooned, eyebrows raising. "Your father I played as a lute. Well-tuned and well-strung. And now by naught but his ill deeds and bitterness is he remembered. And that, Fëanárion, is his legacy. All your woes you may lay at his feet, for as your father went to be consumed by wrath fierce and fell, he in turn left you nothing but a death knell. And looking upon you now, this, dear Elf, is  _true_. And you know it."

Nelyafinwë's face crumbled and his body trembled, and so clearly was it seen how he fought not to break. Melkor knew he had nothing to say, as was only proper. Any fervent light in the princeling's eyes had faded, replaced by that sheer anguish he had now long exhibited. Good.

Melkor returned to his feet, looking down with a glare. "So indeed, little thrall, what have you to lose? You live now this fate, and this sooth in full you now know intimately. As my servant bid you consider, to my offer what would your father say? Upon bending your knee you shall reclaim wholly the Gems, all three, thus and at last fulfilling the Oath that drove you to these vaults. Mayhap you might then find the liberation of death's door, but of all reason for defiance and resistance you have run dry, and to that I say you can dispute no more. The time of denying your fall has ended."

A silence long and still met the end of his speech, and the tension wrought from the finality of the words was palpable. Melkor waited, willing the Elf to break the silence for once, and he would remain kneeling there before all until he did. But sooner than expected, Nelyafinwë looked up. At the sight upon his face, Melkor frowned. Though the Noldo looked long broken and defeated, Melkor grew disconcerted at how the brightness of his fëa's fire had not diminished. Indeed, it was as excessive in ardor and potency as when first he arrived.

But Nelyafinwë spoke with resolve, however dark was his face. "Should I not live, I will be still taken in death in honor of my father. He may have went wild in wrath, he may have been taken by madness, but he is my sire. I vowed his Oath without his asking and with my dying breath I will curse you anew for all you had done to him!" His voice grew in anger the further he spoke and his grey eyes shimmered with a wild grief. And Melkor's mien darkened. "You may have brought to ruin the pillars of his life and seek now to destroy him even in death, but the glory of my sire will be sung far and wide so long as one of his sons goes on."

Melkor gave a tight smile, but it was mirthless and his eyes sparked dangerously. "Rather empty words when the reason you are here now presently crowns my brow."

Again Nelyafinwë's eyes flitted up to Jewels, but just briefly. And the first glimpse of true mockery and derision settled upon his face. "My father at least had the fire to create while you had forfeited yours! You speak of lesser light becoming a darkness before the greater, and the Jewels of our House may sit on your brow, but ever will you be the lesser light in face of the glory my father encased. The sole reason why you wear the Silmarils that are ours alone by right was because you could not replicate their make. So truly, my lord, who exactly stands lesser than a creature made from the dust?"

"And behold where such creation destined your father!" Melkor snarled, the hot air churning. "He is dead, now imprisoned by the Valar beyond Arda's end. Aye, such a thing to boast of, to be a creator of wonders and yet too weak to stop it from bringing you to ruin."

"It changes not that he was the one Elf you could not sway, that you could not beat."

"He failed to evade death ere such shame would have befallen your House and your name defamed," Melkor declared in a rising voice. "Fëanáro never tasted the full bitterness I would have fain delivered, and had he met me on such a front, with but one hand I would have seen him smote."

Nelyafinwë let loose a chuckle, coarse and with unbridled disdain. "High or low, even at the highest peak where reel the dizzy senses at Thangorodrim's crown –" He grimaced as he coughed again and gasped for breath. "At least my father could still create wonders while you could not."

Melkor's eyes widened, a crazed fire lighting them, his body stiffening, and his rage was unleashed in full. Nelyafinwë was again cast to the ground, and so painful and devastating was the blow that this time he could not rise. Melkor looked down upon the Elf crying out in agony and face a display of overwhelming pain, and his hands itched to just take hold of him and tear him limb from limb. He dared…he  _dared_  to speak of that!

So consuming and palpable was his rage that the braziers' fires burst into inferno, and Orcs began mewling and rushing with frantic speed to flee the Nethermost Hall. The air scorched with the stench of sulfur and the rumbling of quakes that wracked the earth beneath the Mountains resounded in the vast cavern. Melkor's vision grew black the longer he stared at the deplorable creature writhing at his feet. He turned from Nelyafinwë in a flurry of robes and static sparking in his wake.

"Make ready the stake!" he barked, voice thunderous and terrible. Many moved swifter than their wont to heed his command. And after several paces away, he turned about once more to glare at Nelyafinwë, and he did not turn his eyes from him as he ordered further: "To the thrall vaults go and gather a score of them, propounding unto the others the doom that now comes. And take our royal guest back to his chains and deliver His Majesty to the cavern to await the price he paid. And upon his return inform my Lieutenant of this change in course!" He saw Nelyafinwë's eyes go wide in a panicked mixture of horror and despair that grew with every new order. Good. Melkor willed that such dread would rot him from within, for the Noldo knew well what was coming. Already he began to regret, but he had never yet tasted the full bitterness of such a pill, and would be given no reprieve until he drowned in it. He would see personally that the bliss of death remained far from him, that he be driven in madness until he no longer knew what death was! Melkor narrowed his eyes and gritted his teeth, voice lowering to a terrifying growl. "Remove this creature from my sight."

He watched as Nelyafinwë was manhandled without care, broken cries being torn from his throat at the brutal jostling, his own boiling wrath practically channeled through their vicious pawing. Not even granted a chance to stand, by hair and bound hands he was dragged from the Nethermost Hall, swallowed by the darkness beyond the mouth, though his agonized cries and racket of the beasts echoed on. Melkor paced the room, too enraged to sit, and so black was his face that any servants remaining fled in terror, their scuffles filling the Hall with deafening sound.

Melkor cared not where they went or that they fled, for he shook. Ai, how he shook and felt to rupture within! Visions filled his sight of Nelyafinwë ruined with new devices, new methods, new pains. New torments to drown in more vile and vicious, new woes to suffer more crippling and malicious. He thought to have suffered to worst by now? Ha! He would fain see the whelp go to survive the plight of the true woe he had yet to taste of light! He spoke as though sure it could do unto him no more, well then, let him be swallowed wholly and cruelly by the brazen words of his mouth. Where reel indeed the dizzy senses staring down from Thangorodrim's stony crown! He tasted but a shade of just how far in the depths reached Melkor's designs where not even his Brethren braved to delve. Sooner would he open his black gales of lightning and pestilential fumes to see that writhing worm sweltered by the Valar's Sun, and by that bane be consumed! To see his foul mouth be broken, his sanity wrecked –

_He dared!_  Melkor spun around, seething and shaking. The words echoed as a haunt and his chest felt to burst with an eternal fire. And with a venomous swipe of his hand at the air that made the braziers dance wildly, Melkor fell to his knees. And he screamed.

It was loud and thunderous, more unearthly and petrifying than even the most hideous fiend. For it was raw and wild, a vocal manifestation sharp and fell of all malice to be had in the deeps of Arda and Eä beyond. In the pits, Elves in thralldom collapsed to their knees, curling upon themselves and shutting their ears desperately from that sound able to make sullied their fëar in a most irreparable way. All within the walls of Angamando heard it and, be he foul or fair, servant or thrall, not one being remained unshaken, for even the Orcs' raucous laughter was made beautiful in face of that hellish shriek.

But it ended and Melkor gasped, hunching over and closing his eyes tight as tremors wracked his corporeal frame.  _How dare he_ , he seethed, shaking his head, coarse hair cascading down. His face morphed into a clashing mixture of rage and grief. How had he known? How had he perceived? That damning swine spoke of things beyond his gen, and he did not need such infuriating impertinence when Manwë still haunted him against his will! Always Fëanáro, always Manwë and, by all dark wizardry of Void, Melkor would see the World crumble, bid the weavings of Eä's mold unravel, and not end his labor until the very existence of their names be unmade!

He shut his eyes tighter. With all his might he willed it away, but still an afterimage swam maddeningly before his face that he always failed to erase. The war circling Utumno had been the wright of his Brethren's' most grievous plight, but he still remembered plain and clear that the war had been made on behalf of the Quendi, that his fortress of unconquerable iron and cold in the North had been broken in  _their_  name. But oh, how he had made them fight, made them expend every morsel of strength! Fourteen to one it took. Fourteen to one! Fire and tumult from earth to sky with snow-capped heights belching flame, how the shape of Arda's lands had changed and broke and the seas moved and boiled….But it had come to an end. Though he sent forth vast legions against the hosts of the Valar, winged servants and creatures of blood, he could not stay the memory of the glorious sight of Manwë's retaliation: a host sailing the skies of Mánir and Súruli, sylphs on the airs and of the winds. And the whistling of Eagles with them.

But though the sylphs had eluded his clutch, many of Manwë's holy Birds had not. For he had caught many Eagles amid the descent of their flight, and had chained them against sharp rocks to squeeze from them the enchanted words whereby he might learn to fly to take his battle with Manwë even to the sky. But they had not yielded.

Melkor felt better at recalling cutting off their wings when they would not tell, the sharp agony in their whistles as he sheared from their bodies their means of flight and crushing their beaks of steel. But even that delightful memory still could not erase the image of his Brethren besieging his Utumno. The memory of sitting on his throne and watching as they approached with all haste.

The memory of Manwë in all his wrath and glory slowing to a stop before him, his look of anger turning into one of shock.

_Brother, what hast thou done to thyself?_

Melkor whimpered at the cutting image of his brother, at how Manwë had looked at him. He could not forget what Manwë had seen, for he had not realized it himself until he saw his little brother after so long a time; that he himself was no longer the same. There Manwë had stood, cloaked in majesty and arrayed in glory most holy, and veiled in flesh that could not contain his voice of thunder or spirit so divinely bright for which he was named. And there had Melkor sat upon his throne, cast in a shadow by his brother, and appearing so withered and worn.

Manwë had been stunned, his feet stilled and tongue silent from his surprise. And Melkor knew he had mirrored it, however masked in the intemperate abhorrence that had flared upon sight of him.

Melkor knew he had been dispersed into the World. It had been his intent! But it meant not he decreased as a person or that he now wielded less personal force than Manwë, as his brother would that he perceive. In this Manwë went to deceive! Went to do any and all things to see his elder brother ruined at his feet. But he would have none of it, no. He had feigned his humiliation for three Ages and more, and now Manwë's time to pay his due was nigh. But Nelyafinwë's bold words echoed again over the perverted thoughts of his brother, and he again trembled violently, unseeing eyes flitting to and fro in uncertainty.

He could not remember when he had first begun to lose his inherent power to Sing, the ability to summon by Song something out of nothing. He could not remember when came the first instance when he could no longer create beyond transforming the created, perverting and violating it according to his desire. And he could not remember when the changing from fana to aura, changing from the flesh akin to that of Quendi back into his true form, had become painful to endure. By fire, it had been so excruciating upon his last transformation in Avathar. He had since attempted it only once upon reclaiming these Dark Lands, but the pain had been so crippling that he could not shift, could barely will away the solid stature of his body. In the flesh he was caged, he could not spirit out of it, when all Ainur could free themselves from their forms of Arda at will. And he knew not why.

Such was why he had tormented the Eagles to learn the enchantments that gifted them the talent of flight, so that he might uplift himself from the ground and battle Manwë throughout the skies, fouling the airs as horridly as he had done the earths. But they had not said, and thus paid the price by the loss of their wings.

Melkor's mind spun, image after image of history long ended yet still so raw running over each other, but he still knew not when he had first begun to lose the power of Song. Another memory long buried and damned surfaced to his mind like the last remnants of smoke skimming a ceiling, and Melkor tore at his hair at recalling how Manwë had loved to hear him Sing. Loved to follow him on his heels into the water reeds in the Timeless Halls, asking him often to lift his voice in a melody pure and sweet and divine before adding to it his own. And so many things magnificent and fair had been born from his Music.

But now, he could create nothing of anything anymore. Even his Orcs stood as but a mockery! Made in hatred and with hatred filled, Orcs and all pitiful creatures of their ilk took him for Lord and upon occasion called him Father and Creator, and they were corrupted in all parts of their beings, their fëar dragging down their hröar in its descent of hate and destruction. Though deliberately perverted, Orcs were naught but beasts in truth of Incarnate shape, and their  _talking_  was naught more than a reeling off speeches that Melkor had imbued in them long ago. He even knew of their rebellious words! For he had taught them speech, and as they had bred and still breed, they inherited the powerful hate Melkor had dispersed into the World and the subterranean heats they were molded from. But it was their Elvish strain that aided them in rising above just being a listless animal, not anything from him. But still, they had as little independence as a steed might of its master.

For they were to nothing more fain than to aid in the basest of purposes of their Master. After all, his children were in just as dire thralldom as the Elves wailing in his pits now, for they had little chance of resisting the domination of his will. So great indeed does his pressure upon them become that when he turned his mere Thought towards them they were conscious of it, wherever they might be, be it deep under the mountains or upon the edge of the sea! And when Melkor departed from Angamando for a time short or long, he knew of the brawls and vicious fights they engaged in, for the fear of his presence was removed to a distance. And his Maiar…so many servants fervent and great….The hint of a smile ghosted across Melkor's face. Like Mairon, many had been gullible and were lured to his side by love or admiration of himself upon revealing the full might of his Power. And though they might be more conscious of their rebellion, he had darkened their fear of him, and now it was too potent to overcome. So they adhered to him as a captain, a protector, becoming at last too terrified to return unto their former allegiance. So perfectly loyal. But it was a web still all spun by skill….Not by gift.

_My father at least had the fire to create while you had forfeited yours_.

Melkor sounded out another fell shout, though this time brief, though the fury felt to sear him from within all over again. And consumed by the second impulse of the same desire, Melkor removed and held before him his Iron Crown. The Silmarils, blazing lustrous in their claws. Made from the glint of all other gems gathered by the light of white lamps and silver candles, from the bathing of pearls and faint half-colors of opals in the phosphor-light gathered of foam in the dark places, and bathed again with the radiant dew of Telperion and a tiny drop of the light of Laurelin. And then housed in a body of flawless glass made stronger than even adamants. Melkor gazed upon them enraptured, but also perplexed.

There was a last element, one that enmeshed all substances of the Jewels' make together. One that remained unknown to him and it drove Melkor to madness. Nelyafinwë claimed it to be the manifestation in truth of the Fire of Fëanáro, but it was an element of living fire that by no means would be doused.

And that enigma should have been beyond the make of any Elf, great or not, and it gnawed like a fire at his heart and sent black clouds unto his mind! To Darkness Everlasting  _damn it all!_  Melkor inwardly wailed as he tightened his grip on the crown, unable to rip his eyes from the dancing hues of Light pure and bright. He could not handle this again. He could not be made to suffer it! But deep in the Light of the Gems Melkor caught the sound of a very familiar Music, and again Melkor saw the face from which such exalted Light hailed, from whose Voice boomed such a sweet Melody. Look away, Melkor urged, cringing in pain. Be gone from me! It was horrid enough that Manwë's Song was ever-present in Arda and Eä beyond. It was why he had poisoned all the airs in and out of Angamando, why he fouled them and sent them back as black vapors! And may he suffocate on them, whether upon Oiolossë or amid marching to Melkor's Gates! And by them be consumed! By molten fire, why must the essence of his conceited brother be in every wisp of wind, every bramble, every dew drop and leaf and every animal?

Melkor closed his eyes again, his throat closing up.

He hated him.

He needed not the torment of his brother's unique Song, for within every interchanging melody of his Resonance sounded the echo of the Greater One in sweet and tender beauty. The One….Melkor felt his blood run cold and he could not stop the burning of his eyes.

Eru had wept. The memory most painful and buried most deep surfaced also, and Melkor wanted to tear down the walls of Angamando in agony of it. He had journeyed to the Void shorn of any counsel to learn, to grow in might, to find the Secret Fire, and in his own Music he had woven what he had learned. Straight away had harshness and discordancy risen around him, many of those that had been playing near him growing despondent and their own Melodies feeble, while others had attuned their Music to his rather than to the great theme wherein they began. And many harmonies of the beauty of His design had been broken and destroyed at the touch of his secret thoughts. But such destruction had been a testament to the power and might to be had when one took that faithful step unto Darkness to learn it! To harken to its secrets and hidden gifts of power and wisdom! If he and all his Brethren had answered the call wholly and completely and found the Secret Fire, they would have then been able to bring things into Being of their own, not simply watch it be done. So often and so deeply and so  _insistently_  had he spoken to Manwë of this need, but that foolhardy coward just refused to listen! So he had gone on his own, refusing to be restrained in growing in might when he, among all Ainur and as Eldest, had been given the greatest of it.

But Eru had wept.

Melkor beheld the Silmarils, but his vision blurred as tears stung his eyes. But no hatred of Manwë or Fëanáro or of all things beheld in Arda and vast Eä could stay the unraveling of his mind. And he hated it. Hated them for it. He shook his head vehemently, desperate for the memory to vanish unto the bottomless Deeps of the Void,  _willing_  it to be so. But the memory remained.

No! No memory. It had not happened. No Father was there. No Father here. No more smiles fair and endeared. No one anymore to call him son. No! As all would in hatred ended be, so had all in hatred first begun. For Ilúvatar did nothing! Ilúvatar watched on as they, his Brethren, mightiest of all dwellers of Eä, made fools of themselves. Watched on inactive and doing nothing!

But He had wept.

Tears fell hot and heavy down his wretched face, and he hated it. Hated the feeling of a razor slicing him without rest from within. For Melkor looked upon the Silmarils, blessed and of undying fire, and hated them. Hated being consumed wholly by the need to take it unto himself. Take all of it unto himself. He needed it. Needed to find it. He needed to gather it all, every morsel, every hue, every beam. All hated light unto himself until none remained, and its creation upon the Song of his brother's lips was brought to ruin. But of the Jewels, he could not yet discern how to shatter their houses of glass and rape them of their Light.

Yet He had wept.

Melkor hunched over, chest tight and growing in excruciating pain, and he trembled as seldom before. He beheld the Silmarils, and stared. Stared and stared, bottomless eyes glinting like the reflection of stars. He raised his charred and ruined hand, drowning in the consumption of its lure. Of the center Gem enmeshed in its foul claw, he brushed his fingers along the flawless planes so akin to the beauty of adamants. A moment when they flared bright. And just as violently as the fiery eruption of a mountain's peak, anguish of the likes he had felt only once before ripped through his fleshly form unto his very ëala.  _Pain. Burning_. Melkor let out a cry keen and terrible that went beyond the far reaches of his fortress. It went unheard by neither beast nor thrall, and rocks were riven asunder both great and small as the gales ever cloaking the Mountains of Shadow clashed in a terrifying display of lightning and thunder.

And about Angamando the molten fires spewed and the vaporous airs churned, for so great and excruciating was Melkor's wail as he wept and was burned. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Some events in this chapter, such as the Elf slaying at the beginning, alluded to events that will be fully revealed in an upcoming story titled "Hells of Iron" that is currently being written.
> 
> Tevildo: Prince of Cats and master of thanes, one of the servants of Melkor, his tale told primarily in The Book of Lost Tales I & II  
> Mánir and Súruli: one of the great hosts of Manwë made of lesser beings, the sylphs of the airs and winds (HoME The Coming of the Valar I.65)  
> Manwë's Eagles: Amid their war at Utumno, Melkor captured the Eagles and put them to torment, cutting off their wings when they wouldn't talk (HoME The Fall of Gondolin II.193-4)  
> The Silmarils: very few knew their making, though Tolkien detailed in few places on how they were made and by what (HoME The Coming of the Elves I.138)  
> Oiolossë: Quenya in origin, and most common name among the Eldar for Taniquetil, though it's the uttermost tower of Taniquetil where Manwë dwells.
> 
> "You cannot thunder with a voice like his." From Job 40:9, verse taken out of context
> 
> Eru wept: This was not a dramatic flair on my part. Ilúvatar did actually weep at what Melkor had done (HoME The Music of the Ainur I.51)


	8. The Manacle

"A sheer precipice where reel the dizzy senses staring down from Thangorodrim's stony crown."  
~ J.R.R. Tolkien,  _The Lays of Beleriand_

**Chapter 8**

The thralls were screaming.

Melkor sighed, and a churning of wind swept through the Nethermost Hall, empty save for the Vala kneeling upon the floor. He shook. His hands, one blackened and one coated in flaking blood, they clenched at the coarse fabric covering his body. And he trembled.

Darkness. Darkness was there. The ever enveloping cold warmth of the Essence of the Void. He inhaled it, reveling in its embracing of his ëala.

But the thralls were screaming. Melkor stirred as the sound at last penetrated the barriers he had cast around himself, his mind soothed by the balm of such hellacious cries, and he felt the raging turmoil quell within. His gaze flitted quickly about the empty Hall, eyes impossibly dilated and alien with a bottomless black. He had willed himself to be consumed by the frore chill of the Darkness, and he felt the warmth of the glittering Folds of Disorder fill in the gaping fractures. It encompassed him, the chaotic Lawlessness, the Disharmony of Melodies long defiled and sullied beyond a healing of their weavings, such noise now having all the beauty of a drowned forest.

It was a balm to Melkor.

With a shuddering sigh, he slowly rose from where he knelt, his fists clenching as his body went on being wracked with tremors. Empty. He hissed at another sudden churning of air around him, and his head snapped to one of the two braziers alongside his throne as its fire grew from the burst of fuel, its flames dancing to an Elf's height. Melkor growled, glaring at the brazen flames. He approached and, with a single breath, blew out the wild brazier, pensively watching the black swirls of smoke rise as the Nethermost Hall grew several shades darker.

Melkor looked to the remaining brazier, the sole source of light left within the Hall, and with a swell of anger he approached it to douse it too, to plunge the Hall into the comforting dark of shadows. But as he drew breath to blow it out, an especially loud wailing of the thralls echoed through the tunnels and met his ears. He closed his eyes at the sound, absorbing unto himself the despair and anguish and fear that laced the Elven cries. Orc laughter came with it, along with his servants' glee that he could sense on a higher dimensional level. Such noise erupting throughout Angamando calmed the inner turmoil, and Melkor felt his shakes subside. He drew another breath to blow out the brazier.

But stopped.

Melkor stared at the dancing fire, the blue flames at its base that lit in an eternal burn until he willed it otherwise. He stared at it, the light of the wicked flames reflecting on his obsidian throne in a haunting display. He stared at the fire, the fire that only made the Jewels enmeshed in his Iron Crown shine more brightly. Light. And fire. The brazier looked to absorb the sounds of wailing thralls, for its bursts of flame fell in tune with their screams. The thralls had yet ceased to voice them.

Melkor's eyes lit with a dangerous light. Nelyafinwë would soon come to scream as though a manifestation of all thralls' despair, unceasing and unending. And staring at the brazier, Melkor knew just how he would pull such agony from their kingly guest.

In a flurry of dark robes, Melkor departed the Nethermost Hall, willing the doors shut behind him. He went swiftly through the tunnels, feet flying over a remembered path through and to different chambers and stairs, heading down and then up and back down. Though Orcs fled from the path of his passage, he encountered no thrall, though their pickaxes and tools lay strewn about, for all the slaves to be gathered were congregated at the Low Chamber to bear witness to Nelyafinwë's lesson, from which their caterwauling still echoed in an endless chant. But Melkor needed them not, for he flew to many collieries and with his hands, he gathered to himself ore of copper and lead and tin, blackened ingots of silver and gold, and the ever-present iron of Angamando. He gathered all six metals with a speed beyond even that of his Maiar and hastened to the High Smithy, where Mairon had remade the iron chains of Nelyafinwë. The vast chamber was empty, but the tall furnaces blazed bright with unfinished moldings of metal and steel, evidence of the hurried clearing out of slaves.

But Melkor approached a furnace freshly fueled and went about the task of crafting together the six metals he had gathered. He worked with a speed and efficiency that outperformed even the talented hands of Mairon, that would have even set his vile Brother Aulë a challenge to beat. Not that he could. But with the music of the thralls resounding through every tunnel of Angamando, and with his own implacable will powering the fire of the furnace to burn impossibly hot, the metal took shape before his eyes.

There was a shift in the air and Melkor recognized the subservient frequency that traveled through the heat. A light pattering of footsteps soon came with it and Melkor looked up just as Mairon was giving his obeisance, not a hair misplaced upon his head. The lieutenant stayed his approach fairly close to the furnace, turning up his eyes to his Master's hardened gaze with apprehension in his own. Melkor let not a morsel of the disquiet he felt within surface to his face, nor resonate among the disharmonious Melodies only he emitted at the sight of his troubled disciple.

He should not have yet returned from his airborne observation of the Noldor so quickly.

Melkor instead lifted an eyebrow, hands never ceasing their molding of his craft. "Well?"

Mairon's eyes flitted down to his project, confusion clear in the glittering orbs, but he looked back up. "I return from the flight among the Noldor you bid of me. Amid my search of you Fankil has informed me of the intransigence of Nelyafinwë."

Melkor waited, his hands stilling. "And?"

"I traversed the Low Chamber on my way here and the score –"

"Your task, Mairon. Not the princeling's lesson."

Mairon grew still, face impassive, though his eyes grew hesitant once again. "They are marching to Angamando, my lord."

Melkor grew wholly still at the words, staring at Mairon, and his servant visibly flinched under the regard. And his eyes glistened. "They march?"

Mairon nodded. "Aye, my lord. It is no mere trekking of land. Ñolofinwë has unfurled his banners of silver and blue. I spied them amid my flight, and neither wife nor child walks with him, though I returned hither ere I could discern if they remain unguarded at the grey lake."

"How many?"

"All of his Host that bears sword and shield, though spear and bow are borne also. His sons march behind him, along with the get of Arafinwë."

"Leagues?" Melkor turned again to the metals, willing them too cool.

"A score, by how I flew," Mairon estimated, again glancing down with a furrowed brow to the shackle gradually yet swiftly taking shape. Though this time he looked not away, tilting his head. "Though by the size of their Host their march is made slow, they will be here within a fortnight at the speed they maintain."

Melkor paused in thought, his eyes narrowing. "You name not the sons of Fëanáro to be among them."

Mairon quickly turned his eyes up again to those of his lord and gave a minute shake of his head, clasping his hands at the small of his back. "Nay, my lord. Their standards are borne not among the Host, but I know not of what discourse they have yet held, if any."

Melkor again turned to his work, taking up a pair of iron tongs, feeling Mairon's curious gaze once more go to watch his hands as they flew, and he sensed envy within his servant as he observed the skill with which he worked. Melkor paid him no heed as his mind turned over Mairon's report. Though he had espied Ñolofinwë's march into Hithlum and the brief sojourn they had held in the basin of the Mountains of Shadow, he had neither yet witnessed nor determined whether or not Ñolofinwë had made contact with the sons of Fëanáro since the end of their trek across the Ice. It had been one factor he had bid Mairon to determine amid his flight, but now to learn Ñolofinwë went to march on unto the very Gates of Angamando….He dismissed his musings. Even if the two Hosts of the Noldor had interacted by now since their parting, he wagered that this march of the Host of Ñolofinwë had or would have been done without Makalaurë's counsel, or in utter disregard of it. After all, Makalaurë had witnessed firsthand all the good it had done the Host of Fëanáro the last time they had acted so brazenly against the mightiest of Eä. He would have told Ñolofinwë, right?

Melkor's face contorted into what might have been a smile, but his eyes were dark and soulless, emitting a black and ominous light. He looked at the lieutenant, though his hands still never ceased their labor. "Rouse the wrath of the Valaraukar," he said, his calm voice belying the swell of eagerness he felt. "Goad the baying of thanes and growls of hounds and kindle the breath of my fire-drakes." Mairon lifted an eyebrow, and Melkor smiled in truth. "It would be discourteous to bestow Ñolofinwë's Host upon their arrival anything less than a proper greeting as only that of mine armies can give." Sparks swiftly flew between his fingers and Mairon's attention was caught by the sudden light. "Ñolofinwë shall taste the unconquerable might of the Great Gate, and though my Children still cower in their dens from the rising of the Sun, I shall instill in Ñolofinwë and his Host a terror the likes of which can be molded only in these hells of iron. Let them traverse the ravines of molten fire! Let them sound their lofty trumpets of silver and behold their din drowned by my thunder. I will imbue my ire into the gales overhead and incite the distress of the mountains and fouled waterways, and thereby will the Noldor go without easy footing or quenching of their thirst come their arrival. They will witness in truth just whose command Arda obeys."

He cast away the tongs and waved a hand at the furnace, and its fire intensified. But he held Mairon's gaze that grew less assured at whatever he saw in his Master's. "They shall learn of their folly when facing the great walls of Angamando, and none are to heed their challenge," Melkor instructed. "No one. But they shall witness a display of might that shall send them trembling with a bottomless dread until they retreat with quaking hearts." Indeed, he added with a vile chuckle, the Host of Ñolofinwë doomed themselves to a lesson akin to that learned by the Host of Fëanáro. Ñolofinwë would have saved his people from such a sooth if he had only sought the counsel of Makalaurë first.

Oh, what would the Valar speak at such childish strife?

Mairon bowed his head, shifting his stance as though readying to depart. "I will go speak to my brethren that they are to stand down come the arrival of Ñolofinwë and go fly south with Ancalagon."

"You will do neither and will fly with Ancalagon later," Melkor spoke with an upheld hand, for Mairon had begun to leave. "Go and grab our little king. His lesson is nigh finished, and bid the thralls return to their labor, lest they desire his lesson to be continued." Melkor looked down, effectively dismissing him, and resumed the forging of the malleable metals.

Mairon looked wholly to the fetter almost fully made. He furrowed his brow, tilting his head. "As you will, my lord, but what is it you are doing?"

"Your task."

Mairon looked up, uncertainty in his alluring eyes and not a little bit of fear. "My lord?"

Melkor felt a stab of impatience and with an exasperated sigh, he reached out with his bloodied hand and grabbed hold of his servant's neck, slamming him against the furnace, and Mairon winced at the harsh impact, still yet unused to the ways of Incarnate flesh. He held still, even at the burning heat dancing against his skin, though neither hair nor apparel caught fire from the flying sparks. Nor did he grab hold of Melkor's wrist, but Melkor went out anyway to paralyze him with his gaze alone.

"Turn not on me such dimwittedness, best beloved," he warned, tightening his grasp. "I have neither the patience nor the will to indulge your feigning, and I am of mind to make your cup more bitter blent than sweet. Do not tempt me." He readied his tongue to speak further, but paused as he stared upon the countenance of his servant. Fairer than even the fairest Child, eyes scintillating the dark beauty found in the nether wastelands of Eä, a voice an echo of the Voice that had been all he had retained of his former glory….Melkor tilted his head. Why had he allowed Mairon to remain so beautiful upon his changing of fealties? He had allowed it of no other, and at present, Melkor felt to be in a fell enough mood as to scar his servant's ëala in addition to the flesh.

"My lord?"

The entreaty shook Melkor from the musing, and he saw that Mairon's eyes had darkened in raw terror at what he had seen unfold in his own eyes. Good. Melkor released him. "I bid you to break the whelp, to implant in him a harvest of hate where all seeds of olden love bitter or sweet are made twisted and blackened unto his very fëa. To turn that he hates unto himself, to render his mind to the furthest corner an endless recycling of loathing as to be consumed by it in full. Nelyafinwë may be damned the vessel of a broken body, but  _never_  had I before thought I would see again the fire of Fëanáro with an even more burning of ardor. Yet I saw it today." Melkor stamped down the smoldering blackness that curdled within at the mere memory of the atrocity in the Nethermost Hall just hours ago, refusing to let it find purchase in his thoughts again so quickly. Yet he could not disremember it, this unfolding of a broken and bloodied creature, and how in truth it ought to have been impossible. "Had you fulfilled my will, the living essence of his fëa would be smote. Ten years I have granted you, ten years have I watched and waited, and now I will see it done myself. For however longer I deem he lives, I will see him live his suffering in an eternal autumn – russet, still, and waiting to die, until I grant him the pitiless death of winter. And my patience for both you and him has reached its end."

Mairon still had a look of bewilderment. "But what has your craft of a manacle to do with it, Master?"

Melkor regarded his servant with a keen eye, and knew upon inspection of his Thought that the Maia had perceived the significance of the six metals being used, but wisely remained silent on the clear mockery they represented. "Our kingly guest beseeches for an end to the darkness I shroud him in, and he shall have it. To use more light I instructed you, and praise be to my beloved Manwë for unwittingly giving us it, for as I ordained I speak again: I will see the Noldo fastened to the crags of a cliff and feel that Tree's fruit burn him from within.

"Nelyafinwë believes he has suffered all the woes to be had at my devices, believes he has seen the farthest I can go ere just slaying him myself." His eyes sparked. "But ever will he go on to learn of the cruel Ordering of Creation, in that as the mightiest of all Dwellers I have no limitations. And he will suffer tenfold under the Sun. Even as his eyes will be blinded and bled, one simple band of steel will deliver a horror unto his body he could nigh perceive. He hates the screaming of thralls, so will be left isolated to instead hate the sound of silence. He hates the decayed air of his vault, and so will hate the fresh wind for every burn its impact gives to even the smallest of wounds. He hates the embrace of his chains, and so will be freed and left to hang by but a single fetter, and hate that the impending internal agony is ever so worse than the torments put to mere skin. And all the while will Manwë's vessel of that fruit scorch him." A ghost of a smile surfaced. "Nelyafinwë will crave again his old imprisonment and its darkness with it ere he can even determine what a sun is."

"But not one lumen of either Sun or Moon enters your Dwelling, my lord," he reasoned, but Melkor could see the subtle shift in Mairon's unique Resonance, indicating delight and a thrill of excitement, though none of it surfaced to his face. "It is as you willed. Too thick and knotted is the tempest of your gales."

"I will part the gales for him alone." Melkor gave a bitter smile. "Manwë will be made to see this mockery."

A flash of horror and revulsion shown then in Mairon's face, though he was quick to suppress it. "You would withdraw the cover you summoned against that baneful light, my lord?" It was asked quietly, but Melkor heard the tremor in his fine voice.

He gave a mirthless grin. "Not so, best beloved," he reassured coolly, running his hand through the silken tresses, flakes of dried blood catching on the strands. "Never will Manwë gain such purchase in my domain. To Nelyafinwë I will bestow their blessed light until he loathes it and craves again the darkness, and then withdraw it until he loathes the dark and craves again the scorching light." Blackness seeped into his face. "Even if not for the benefit of our Noldóran, I would part the dark clouds and close them again for the pure delight alone of proving over and henceforth always that my Brethren's light can succeed not even a foothold in my Dwelling."

Mairon was visibly appeased. "But what of the veil you keep upon the Elf's eyes, my lord?" he asked. "Ñolofinwë comes, and it has been your will that Nelyafinwë knows naught of his arrival by way of the Ice. That to Valinor he and his Host had returned, disgraced and their proud Houses left desolate. It is wise to risk the sustaining of lies spoken as truth to him when the mere sight of Ñolofinwë's banners may alone unravel the weave?"

Melkor gave a dismissive wave of his hand. "It shall be not so, for he will be too high up."

A shadow of suspicion flitted across Mairon's expression. "Where intend you to bind him, Master?"

Melkor looked at him then, eyes now glittering with a cruel amusement, and a blast of heated air shot through the cavernous smithy. "Where reel the dizzying senses, of course."

Mairon's eyes dawned with comprehension. "Thangorodrim."

Melkor nodded. "Upon its crown, for after all, deserves our little king no less when he has naught else to grace his brow?" He huffed in dark humor. "These Firstborn seem always to have a way of unwittingly declaring their own dooms."

Mairon smiled, a small upturning of the corners of his mouth, but his spirit within was dancing. "For how long will you sentence him there?"

Melkor lifted an eyebrow. "Until he bends his knee." He nodded towards the mouth of the chamber. "Go now to him. Later will I deal with you."

Mairon nodded, and Melkor could perceive the fury with which the thoughts of his cunning mind now flew. He bowed to his lord. "As you bid, I will go escort him here." He walked about the furnace to depart.

"Nay, to the mountains," he called after him. Mairon halted, turning to him with a look of enquiry. " I will leave a trail for you to follow. Any others who would fain bear witness may come also."

"But must he not first be fettered, my lord?"

Melkor shook his head, gesturing to his almost completed work. "To my own will this manacle is made, and his wrist shall be sealed inside by words of my mouth."

Mairon's eyes widened ever so slightly at what went unspoken. "You mean for it to become a part of his body even beyond when he will come to kneel at your feet?"

Melkor gave a single nod. "That, or unto the ending of his life. His fëa shall have to flee even from his body to be free of me."

"Such blight will be enough to break him further," Mairon realized.

"Will be enough to break him in full," he corrected. "And he shall be, now go. For him it will be a trek long and weary to the towers."

With a final bow Mairon departed, his steps hastened on by a fervor that encircled him as a corona. Melkor watched him go as he was disappeared around the corridor's bend. He cast his Thought unto the Low Chamber and saw indeed that all was nigh finished with the thralls and the sole Noldo residing in Angamando. An overabundance of blood had been shed, twenty new Elven thralls now dead, and their life blood drained by the most prolonged of torments, a particular sentence so woeful that it was perceived eviler than death at its slowest by every thrall who crawled in his fortress. Melkor could smell the iron tang of the pools of blood from where he worked, despite being above them in elevation by over a league. Inspired by the perfume, he turned again to the splendor of his labor and with a swiftness ill-conceivable and willpower implacable, he finished it.

A band of steel rested in his hands, still yet emitting a heat blistering enough to scald Elven flesh. He ran lithe fingers along the fine sheen. Six metals folded and encased within, the smoldering fires of the furnace danced in its reflection, and a thrum of power dark and insidious teemed through the flawless curvature of steel. Unbreakable and unyielding, Melkor knew that not even the plasma fires of the forge of Aulë himself could unmake it. With it and resting alongside the assortment of iron tools were two nails with bulbous heads. Molded from heat-hardened iron, they were a handspan in length and narrowed to the point of a cold chisel, surrounded by four small spurs that would anchor it irreversibly into the rock unless undone by his words alone.

Gathering together the three pieces of embedded wizardry and taking up an iron mallet, Melkor departed the High Smithy with a swiftness of foot that flew him as a passing shadow over granular rock and through convoluted and winding tunnels once again, passing witless Orcs and not a few thralls that cowered away come the sight of him to flush against the walls, subdued and shaken beyond measure. Along the fastest route Melkor ascended to the surface of Angamando, traveling along the Great Tunnel until he came to yet another obscure passage that wound evermore upwards. And he walked it until, for the second time that day, Melkor left the roof of mountain roots and came to the three great peaks that fenced his Dwelling, smoking sickly ash and disappearing into the black cover of clouds.

Melkor looked at Thangorodrim, paying no heed to the vicious wind battling against him, nor the sparks and embers that were carried across the vast reaches of Angamando from the pools and rivers of fire. Melkor regarded each of the oppressive mountains, gaze flicking from one to the other, contemplating which of the three would be best-suited for Nelyafinwë. After due and swift consideration, he decided upon the west-tower. The central tower was tempting, but Mairon's concern for the imminent arrival of Ñolofinwë was correct. Even though he purposed to place the get of Fëanáro high where none could reach him, he would not risk the enthralled king laying sight, however chancy, on the Host of his kin. And hanging him upon the central tower that faced foremost the wastelands from where Ñolofinwë would hail offered the greatest chance of seeing the marching of Noldor, no matter how obscured he might will the Elf's eyes to be. But at midpoint between the Great Gate and Secret Gates westward Nelyafinwë would see nothing, even should he try.

Now decided, Melkor altered his course and approached the tower, traversing over obstacles and compositions of rock impossible for even the most fleet-footed Elf to surmount. Though it would be hours before Nelyafinwë could make the journey in the encumbrance of his ruined body, Melkor was hastened by the ever underlying current of anger that smoldered any measure of satisfaction he may have felt.

He came to the tower and ascended it, pondering now how high he would go. While the central tower stood in height over two leagues tall, its neighbors each soared into the sky nearly as high. He knew the peak itself where belched the ash and smoke of the thralls' labor was no option, for at that extreme height Nelyafinwë would suffocate fairly quick at the lack of air. And what air there was up there would be so fouled and noxious that it would poison the hröa of any Incarnate. And he would not allow the ruined Noldo the bliss of death yet.

But where? Melkor traversed the tower, observing the ghastly mountainsides that had been built of slag from the furnaces and rubble amid the redelving of Angamando. For Nelyafinwë he wanted the perfect place. A place where silence would deafen him, where isolation would smother him, where the frore chill summoned from the Regions of Everlasting Cold would freeze him while the heat of the fires of Angamando would scald him. Where Sun and Moon could be defiled in their purpose while still being drowned in the Darkness that reigned. Where none could reach him, where he would believe himself abandoned. Where he would crave even the sound of Orcs' callous laughter or the wailing of Elves in thralldom if it meant retaining some sense of familiarity. Where he would learn in truth that, for him, Melkor would never rest.

And suddenly, Melkor knew just where to place him, and he rerouted his course.

He had built up these mountains and knew them with an intimate knowledge. Knew every crag, every shingle, every cliff. Knew every tumble of stone as lightning struck it and every reworking of its base as the quakes he sent rocking his stronghold shook it. And where he now went was to a precipice of the mountainside among the most oppressing. There was a protruding ledge not a handbreadth wide that ringed the plumb wall and he walked on it, gazing around. Here. The slag of the wall was smooth and absent of any nook or cranny. Before him was a yawning abyss, the tail of a great chasm in the earth that ran from the Iron Mountains unto the central tower, dividing Thangorodrim from the lesser mountains and cliffs that led unto the westward wastelands of the North. Across the way from where he stood was the bluff of one cluster of those lesser mountains, a tangled mess of massifs and perilous ridges, but at so far a distance that it was beyond the throw of any stone. It was an ugly view, lifeless and barren, and nothing could be seen beyond it amid the dark shroud of Angamando and rain of ash. Aye, a horrid view indeed, but the only one Nelyafinwë would be able to see.

Melkor felt a thrill of delight, stirring more chaos in the gales above him as they displayed more scattered lightning and rolling thunder. Turning to the wall, he readied nail and hammer but paused as a cruel thought grew his mind. And he smiled, deciding to drive the band of steel into the slag higher up on the wall, so thus would Nelyafinwë have no purchase to bear his weight, no ledge on which to stand. Let the agony be at its peak from its maiden dosage, he snarled.

And so higher up he went until the ledge was lost in the smoke-clogged and filthy winds. He took the manacle and the mallet and the nail and, sliding it through one of the anchors of the shackle, he drove home the first nail with an echoing clang that sang along the mountains' empty chasm. Melkor cackled at the sound. The royal Noldo hungered for the outside and so outside he would be. Ñolofinwë and his Host were coming, marching even now unto the Gates of Angamando. The cruel irony was not lost on Melkor of the circumstances, for he knew he would laugh aloud at how the Noldor would loudly go to declare their challenge at the fence of his Dwelling, all the while their king lay imprisoned behind it.

He went on hammering, leaving a margin of the nail free from the rock. He would wait for Nelyafinwë to witness in both sight and horrid sound the final blows of the hammer against his enchained wrist.

It was as he had asserted all this day. Let Nelyafinwë follow the scorched path carved out by the Spirit of Fire. Let his mind be clouded by the tendrils of residual smoke! Let him taste the full bitterness of decisions made. Fëanáro's fire had been smote by greater flame, and so would Nelyafinwë's light be smote by greater light. Fëanáro in mind had drowned in the abyss of madness, and so would his fiery firstborn be twisted in thought and corrupted in heart until all lies were truth and all Truth lies of the bitterest fruit. Until the dancing wildness of Nelyafinwë's fiery spirit consumed him as had Fëanáro's. Until the Third Finwë was brought to a ruin akin to that of the First and the Second. Until Manwë watched this mockery in full, for from atop Ilmarin his little brother could see all, and Melkor would fain make him witness this travesty of Elven life. Until Manwë failed in his task as a Guardian again and again.

Come save him, little brother, he goaded, casting his merciless Thought unto the darkened West. Do it! Mayhap now you will move! Move to reawaken our olden Wars ere came the birth of Time! Here will Nelyafinwë hang, and he will by you be beheld as the living shrine of all your precious Children you swore to Guard now enchained in the thralldom of my design! See him, and know again upon every new day's rising of your Sun that you allow it!

A hail of shards of gravel tumbled down the mountainside, showering the Dark Lord, but Melkor did not heed it. He readied the second nail and hefted the mallet to drive it in, envisioning already Nelyafinwë's naked and worthless form framed by russet hair upon the bleak wall. Nelyafinwë will break. Kept always alive to the margin of death, yes, but Nelyafinwë would here remain until broken in full, or until he devised a new and better design to fulfill his will of the Noldo. Sealed inside and condemned henceforth to wear an ornament of unbending steel, his ending of whatever vain hope sustained the obstinacy of his fëa would begin.

Melkor hammered the second nail in.

Yes, let it begin.

**END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot emphasize enough the significance of this story's place in the chronology. Maedhros has so far been imprisoned for approximately 10 years. Amid this duration, Fingolfin and his Host came into Beleriand and into Hithlum, took their respite in Mithrim and, without any reunion yet with the Fëanorians, he marched onward to Angband. Maedhros was bound to the precipice of Thangorodrim before Fingolfin reached the Gates, and then hung there for 30 years before Fingon went out in search for him. And it is true that Maedhros did not see the Host of Fingolfin, but he did *hear* them: "the Elves smote upon the gates of Angband, and the challenge of their trumpets shook the towers of Thangorodrim; and Maedhros heard them amid his torment and cried aloud, but his voice was lost in the echoes of the stone." He heard them.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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